


“Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint"

by That_proves_nothing



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:29:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9374483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_proves_nothing/pseuds/That_proves_nothing
Summary: "Robert is loud, demanding. He doesn’t beg, doesn’t say please. He says “fuck me”. He says “harder”. He says “faster”. Pulling on Aaron’s hair, he says “get here” “hold on!” “come!”And Aaron does. Every time. Multiple times even.Later they’ll lie in bed, share a cigarette. The smoke's fading against the whiteness of the walls, weightless and unpretentious.It’s honest in a way only emaciated relationships like these can be. "*AuAaron's an artist, Robert's a businessman. It shouldn't work. Good thing it's just about sex then.





	1. Robert

“Go on,” says Rebecca, waving her champagne flute across the extravagant gallery space, “Admit it- you love this.”

Aaron grunts In response. In his head, he’s already forming an escape strategy.

Rebecca doesn’t get it. She rarely does.

Granted, there are a few bonuses to being the star guest at your own art show- nobody bats an eye at your color stained hoodie or your bitter face. He’s pretty sure half the people here are anticipating a him to go through a mental breakdown or a drunkard onslaught. Probably both.

Rebecca’s off to mingle, or whatever it is she does and Aaron takes another swig of his beer. He'd hate to disappoint.

His drawings hang like corpses on the wall and the need for a smoke becomes almost desperate. He scratches the inside of his wrist, then shoves his free hand into his pocket avoiding temptation.

 He’s busy searching for the nearest exit, one where he'll have to go through as few art-people as possible to get to, when a voice breaks through.

“What was that?” Aaron has to turn his head to fully see the bloke.

Aaron doubts he’s an art person, he had seen enough of those. No. The guy’s three tiered suit hints to something along the lines of an investment banker or a broker.

A hot broker.

“I was wondering,” hot broker nods at Aaron’s bottle “when they started serving beer at art shows.” His expression is a confusing mix of eagerness at getting Aaron’s attention and arrogance of knowing he’s captivated it.

Aaron schools his features, liking the idea of chipping at the latter to reveal the first, “been to many of these then?”

“Enough to grow sick of this cheap bubbly.” His face pulls in disgust over the rim of his own glass.

Aaron’s pretending to survey the crowd,“You some sort of an alcohol snob?”

Hot broker waits until he’s captured Aaron’s gaze again then smiles mischievously, “Only when I’m sober. “

There’s promise in his eyes and any pretence Aaron had at coolness is shot out the window. It’s as if Hot broker has managed to mentally project images of himself drunk and for the taking directly into Aaron’s retinas. It’s a hook, line and sinker and by the smug look on his face, Hot broker’s well aware of it.

Aaron bites his lips unconsciously, “I guess I could be persuaded to reveal my beer stash.”

Hot broker extends his hand for a shake. Aaron gets the once over and a quick glimpse at the wedding band.

“Robert.” He introduces himself and goes on to hold Aaron's hand a little longer than necessary.

The heat pooling in Aaron’s nether region gets a sudden icing from Rebecca's voice behind him  
“I see you two met, then.”

Robert isn’t happy about it, to go by the small twitch of his mouth. It’s a squint-and-you’ll-miss-it, and it appears that Rebecca does, as betrayed by the hungry look In her eyes. Robert reluctantly lets go of Aaron’s warm, if slightly clammy hand, to exchange amiable kisses with her.

 “Two years worth of invitations and he finally decides to grace us with his presence.” She scolds flirtatiously. She touches Robert's arm then gestures at the art on the wall.

“So what do you think?”

Robert shrugs, his eyes still firmly on Aaron. “To be honest, I was too busy checking the price tags.”  
Rebecca seems mildly outraged, but Aaron barely manages to hide his amusement behind his beer bottle.

Well played Hot broker. Well played.

“Robert heads the Fairchild fund,they’ve just purchased a few original Dingles”. Rebecca unnecessarily excuses Robert’s last words. For whose benefit, Aaron's not entirely certain.

Robert’s stares at him unabashedly above the rim of his glass, checking for Aaron’s reaction. Aaron finishes his drink in one gulp, faking disinterest. Probably not too successfully, considering how Rebecca looks between them.

It hits him suddenly, “Wait. Robert?? As in Chrissie's Robert?”

Rebecca eyes narrow in puzzlement over Aaron's apparent thickness. Robert seems completely nonplussed by the revelation- the amused smile on his face unwavered.

 The air buzzes with tension, a weird triangle of lust, unrequited desires, and a metaphorical elephant in the room in the form of a ring.

It’s doing Aaron's head in.

He doesn’t bother making an excuse, slipping away towards the back exit.

*

“I heard those will slowly kill you.” A voice comes behind him as he blows out a ring shaped cloud on the Fire escape by the dumpsters.

Aaron doesn’t need to turn to know it’s Robert. He was half expecting him.

“Heard the same about marriages.” He answers before inhaling again.

“Fair point.” Robert smirks as he sits down beside him, reaching for Aaron’s fag. Somewhere along the way, Robert has discarded his tie and jacket. His collar's unbuttoned, creating a vee Aaron finds himself wanting the lick into. Their fingers brush, shooting a shockwave straight to Aaron’s groin, distracting him from his cigarette being pulled away.

He follows it all the way to Robert’s mouth.

He takes the time to silently study Robert’s features as he’s blowing smoke. He lets himself dwell in it because any pretence is long gone, and because Robert allows it. In fact leaning back against the railing, Robert's practically basking in the attention. The expression on Robert's face can be summed up as a defiant interest, and it’s only when Aaron examines the tilt of his mouth that something suddenly rings familiar, “have we met before tonight?”

There’s a slight shift In Robert's eyes, a tiny change In the angle of his chin. Aaron probably wouldn't even have noticed, had he not been actively searching for it. Before he has any grasp on it, though, it already morphs back to the previous cocky, If disingenuous, grin “I think you would have remembered me.”

Aaron scoffs, _of course_ , the predictable smart-mouth response. By the quickness it left Robert's mouth, Aaron guesses it’s almost pavlovian. Obviously, there’s some innate truth to it. Robert is many things, immemorable isn’t one of them, but something irks Aaron the wrong way, and he has a sudden urge to rub this thing thin. Whatever this thing is. “It’s weird, is all.” he reaches for his cigarette again. “I’ve heard about the elusive Robert Sugden for over two years now. “ A content smile breaks on Robert's face, “when he does show up, he spends the entire evening shamelessly flirting with me. In the presence of his sister In law, no less.”

Robert shrugs nonchalantly, “is there a question In there, somewhere?”

Aaron searches for the right spot to sink his talons in. “Why tonight?”

Robert pretends to think it through, then raising his brow says, “the reviews said the artist’s hot”

Aaron accepts defeat. Against his better judgement, he decides to play along, “and? What’s the verdict?”

Robert shrugs,”all I’ll say, is that it’s good to see that journalistic integrity has been restored to its former glory.”

“That is good.” He finds himself grinning.

“Besides, “ Robert leans in conspiratorially, “That’s not what you really wanted to know.”

“It isn’t?” Aaron narrows his eyes in interest while sucking on the fag.

“Nope.” Robert licks his lips and stares squarely at Aaron. “You wanted to know whether the carpet matches the drapes.”

Aaron chokes on his puff, coughing wildly. He shakes his head while calming himself down. “If anything,” he says when his voice goes back to a recognisable register, “I was wondering if there’s any way your performances could match up with your bravado.”

Robert wiggles his eyebrows in way that should ridiculous but still manages to look sexy. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

 Seconds later their tongues are fighting for dominance and Robert has his hand down Aaron’s pants.

“My flat’s just a few blocks over.” Aaron manages to say in between panting.

Robert’s up In seconds pulling on Aaron's hand.

“Let’s go!”

*

It’s no small feat, surmounting the short distance between the gallery and Aaron’s London flat. It’s a treacherous road that offers unimaginable obstacles in the form of Robert's soft lips, smart fingers and too many walls to knock each other into. Unlocking the entrance door, with Robert's very distracting breath on his neck proves almost impossible. So when, finally, they’ve all but spilled in, it catches Aaron by complete surprise that Robert takes a respite to check out the place.

“I see you haven’t bothered to decorate.” he takes in the stark walls and the lonely sofa in the living room.

Aaron shakes his head In disbelief, “I don’t think I’ve invited you here for an interior design commentary.”

Robert’s retort- snarky one no doubt - gets lost in his throat as Aaron drops to his knees.

*

Ok.

So the short version is that they have sex. The longer version is that it happens more than once. Honestly, It happens more than once that night and somewhat often after that.

The whole story is this: It’s Robert texting that he’s coming over, or calling to make sure Aaron’s there. Sometimes not even that, just Robert waiting on Aaron doorstep when he gets home. No appointments or arrangements made. No small talks, no catching up.

He doesn’t know about the lies Robert tells Chrissie. Doesn’t want to know how he excuses his time away. Lies and excuses have no place between them. They’re uninvited.

Robert doesn’t bullshit him, which Aaron appreciates, if nothing but for the sheer novelty of it.

It’s not easy, this thing between them. Not uncomplicated. But it’s weightless. It’s Robert against the wall. It’s rutting against each other on the floor. It’s quick handjobs in the kitchen. It’s hungry and consuming, but weightless.

The sex is great. amazing. All teeth and tongues and fingers deep enough to ache but careful enough not to bruise. They don’t mark each other. It’s a given.

Aaron loves the moment Robert’s cologne starts to fade. Doesn’t like the pretence of perfume, of cleanliness. There’s nothing clean about this. Loves it when he can smell Robert’s sweat and cum and then another thing, completely Robert.

Robert is loud, demanding. He doesn’t beg, doesn’t say please. He says “fuck me”. He says “harder”. He says “faster”. Pulling on Aaron’s hair, he says “get here” “hold on!” “come!”

And Aaron does. Every time. Multiple times even.

Later they’ll lie in bed, share a cigarette. The smoke fading against the whiteness of the walls, weightless and unpretentious.

It’s honest in a way only emaciated relationships like these can be.

* 

Although he never thinks to ask Robert to stay, sometimes Robert does so unasked. A little longer each time. At first just for a second or a third round. After a few weeks, for post coital sleep. A month in, he’s there for breakfast. One morning Aaron opens one of the kitchen cabinets to find an expensive brand of coffee he has no recollection of buying.

“You should start respecting your palate” Robert says, turning on the coffee machine. “I couldn't subject myself anymore to that muddied water you were brewing.”

Robert stays for an entire weekend. Monday morning Aaron finds a new towel in the shower and a second tooth brush by the sink.

They fight about it. Or rather, Aaron picks up a fight and Robert ends it by getting naked.  
Aaron says: “this is not my home, and it’s most definitely not yours.”

But truth is, recently, Aaron finds himself spending a lot more time in London, than in the country side cottage he normally calls home.

 *

He probably should have noticed earlier when Robert started getting his morning paper at Aaron's, but by then, they have already settled into an easy wordless routine of swapping sections and reading in comfortable silence.

“Dingle is a generation Y Keith Haring. The parallels are almost uncanny…” Robert reads aloud from the art section, his mouth in a lopsided smile.

Aaron grunts, he had heard that one before. “What parallels? Both of us gay graffiti artists? Trust me, mate, we come a dime a dozen.”

 In a way, it’s true, he started like the rest of them: A messed up teen, with no adult supervision and a can of spray. Testing his signature on bridges, and bus stations, perfecting his style on council housing and governmental offices. Feeding on the rush that came with near escapes, and chance encounters with law officials.

A critic once told him you could see the exact point where his art was transformed from the idling of a teen misadventure into pieces of social commentary. And, honestly, Aaron could mark the point to the day. He can also mark the point where the thrill of the chase was replaced by the release of the cut. But that’s nothing he’ll ever say out loud, never mind a stranger

 "..'sides”, He gulps his coffee and goes back to reading the sports section “if you’re looking to die, there are faster ways of going about it than perishing away from AIDS” . He side glances to see Robert’s reaction to his dark humour, noticing him looking at Aaron’s wrists. There is softness in his eyes that resembles concern. Aaron smile fades.

It’s unnerving and it’s heavy.

Aaron didn’t sign up to any of that.

*

 Jeff Murphy writes for Art Monthly. Beside harassing Aaron for an interview for the better part of a year, he’s also been quite clear about his desires to get into Aaron’s pants.

If Aaron happens to invite him for an exclusive in his flat at a time he knows Robert will probably still be there. Well, that’s neither here nor there.

There is something to be said about the dumbfounded looks on Robert's face when he opens the door to find Jeff standing there. Robert in his dark tailored suit, Jeff in jeans and soft sweater, Robert’s tense shoulders and Jeff’s easy lazy smiles. All the pieces that assemble this image are like stitching to Aaron’s frayed edges.

 Jeff’s is a good looking guy in that effortless cocky way Aaron often finds attractive. He once had spent an entire night with him at a pub, after a shitty theatre show they’ve both had to attend. Aaron doesn’t remember the last time he laughed so much. Jeff’s witty and quick and knows everything about anything. Aaron still not sure why they’ve never fucked.

“Jeff, Robert, Robert, Jeff.” He introduces them then leads Jeff in. Robert follows.

He settles on the sofa next to Jeff. Overtly ignoring Robert.

“So,” says Jeff, probably sensing the tension “should we start?” a proceeds to takes a tape recorder out of his pocket, presses it and puts it on the coffee table.

“You’re a journalist” Robert states, his posture relaxes. “Never seen one of these done before.” he points at the recorder as a way of explaining, and sits himself down on a chair in the corner, crossing his hands

Jeff smirks, obviously amused by the scene unfolding before him. He looks at Aaron speculatively “I usually prefer to do this without the boyfriend around. It tends to affect the dynamics.”

“Not my boyfriend.” Aaron responds quickly, looking at Jeff but meaning it for Robert’s ears. It has the desired effect, if Robert’s deflated shoulders are anything to go by.

“We shouldn’t have a problem then, should we..” Jeff checks for Aaron response. Aaron answers with a shrug.

Then next hour is a mix of sexual innuendos and occasional touches- mostly initiated by Aaron- and with Robert nervously looking at his watch and jerking his knees.

Finally Robert gets up. Rubbing his hands on his thighs. “Aaron,” he says, “can I have a word?”

“Sure.” He answers flatly and stays planted on the sofa. His entire body still focused on Jeff.

“In private?”

Aaron rolls his eyes in mock exasperation but follows him to the entrance hall.

“What?” Aaron says shortly, like this is a challenge he’s expecting Robert to fail. Hoping he does. Robert doesn’t bite. He searches Aaron eyes for something, seemingly failings to find it.

He leaves wordlessly, resignation on his face.

*

It’s an hour later, that Jeff leaves.

“I think I have enough here.” And gets abruptly from the sofa picking his recorder on the way out.

“You’re sure?” Aaron says, the question devoid of any hidden meaning.

“Yeah,” Jeff smirks, “no hard feelings, yeah? But I know when I’m a pawn.”

 *

Robert shows up again that night. Aaron should resent the assumption he’s invited, or that Aaron is alone. He should resent the presumptuous way Robert slams him against the wall. Wordlessly. He should resent the desperation with which Robert tears at his clothes, or the force he uses to push Aaron, face first, against the mattress. He should maybe resent the teeth that bite at his back, or the tongue that delves in. He should resent the noises that his own mouth produces, the moans and the grunts. He should resent Robert for pushing in, in one go with so little preparation. He should resent how quickly he comes.  
But he doesn’t. Not even a little bit. It's an honesty he’s been missing.

Later, Robert turns him around with something of a reverence. He traces the lines on his forearms with the tips of his fingers. Then kisses lightly the criss crosses that adorn Aaron’s abdomen with a tenderness that’s almost unbearable. It makes it hard to breath. Like there are cracks in the walls allowing deceit in.

Robert rests his hand on Aaron's heart and says, “I want you to invite me to your home.”

*

 Rebecca is the only non-family member who’s ever been to the cottage. She’s been his agent for a year by then, and he figured he owed her as much, if not so much more.

She thought it was hilarious- The mix of 70s wallpaper and the woodchip on the wall, the dainty flowers on the sofa, the old wood stove.

“This looks like my gran’s house.”

But Aaron loved it, the wear and tear of a house well lived in. He hasn’t changed a thing after he purchased it from the previous owners- an old retired couple who decided to spend their last days in warmer weather.

He lied when they asked if he was buying to start a family. Made some story about a surprise for a fiance, and the need for space for future childrens. “We always dreamt of raising them in a small village,” he got swept away when he saw the excited teary-eyed way the owner responded. “Bless you.” she held his hand. “We have great memories from this place,” she said and her husband nodded emphatically. “All our wee ones grew up here. All left the nest. I’m sure you’ll make fantastic new memories all on your own.”

And for a few aching moments Aaron actually believed her.

The London flat was completely different- spacious with beautiful crown mouldings and huge bay windows. It looked like a proper space for an artist. Aaron hated it on sight.

He bought it several months ago, because he was spending so much time In London and hated hotels. Rebecca assured him it was a wise investment. She said she got it from a friend of a friend who was desperate for the money, and that he would be an idiot to pass this one up. He let her take care of the transaction, even let her choose the sofa and the bed.

It was all about bare essentials and purpose served, and somehow a fitting backdrop to the entire Robert ordeal.

Except.

Well, except, over there, was one of Robert's t-shirts folded on a pillow, on a side of the bed that at some point turned his own, and next to it was plugged a charger that Robert left _just In case._ There was a fancy gel In the shower, a second razor by the sink, Roberts journals on the coffee table, a large mug, Robert brought one day,was on the dish-rack.

 It felt invaded to. Aaron needed to get away.

*

To an innocent bystander it might look like hiding, but Aaron manages to convince himself he’s just taking a break to sort his head out.

Either way, he really owes no one excuses.

He leaves London one tuesday morning and spends the next three weeks doing maintenance work on the cottage: Strengthening screws and hinges. cleaning the chimney and gutters, putting new tiles on the roof, applying another coat of lacquer on the hardwood floor. Ignoring the endless messages on his phone.

It’s wednesday noon, when he braces himself to read one of Rebecca’s.

'Isn’t Jeff Murphy the one we met at that east-end show?'

The next one says.

'Next time you want the attention of someone you fancy, remember there are easier ways than unprompted interviews. '

Finally

'Even though I’m still mad at you, I’m glad you’re getting yourself out there'

He chuckles at his phone, appreciating the irony of the last message, considering he barely set foot out of the house for the past three weeks.

There's a knock on the door, and Aaron wonders if Rebecca actually drove all the way down to reprimand him in person. It wouldn’t be a first. It’s kind of a ritual really.

He opens the door, apology on his lips, when he sees Robert standing there.

 *

There are countless questions on Aaron’s mind. Like, _why are you here? How did you find me? Who told you, you could come? Why aren’t you saying anything?_ But they get lost between the hammering in his throat and the dryness of his mouths, like he was somehow robbed of the ability to express words, stunned mute.

Robert pushes past him, striding in confidently, taking in Aaron’s living room with a calmness that’s reserved to an inspector doing his regular checkup, surveying the walls, touching the textile of the cushions, observing the light filtering in between the blinds. A small smug smile tugging at his lips. At least, Aaron assumes it’s smugness, that's the only recognizable feature in this entire picture. Maybe it’s Robert, all sleek and done up against the backdrop this quaint, kitsch interiors, or the juxtaposition of his fitted leather jacket against this homeliness. But it feels as if, just by being there, Robert has managed to make Aaron’s own home unfamiliar, foreign, turned it on its head

Robert takes off his jacket, putting it on an armchair, revealing a soft blue sweater in its wake, an act that resembles shedding skin or losing part of his protective shell, he stands there like an open invitation. A ray of sun breaks against Robert’s back enveloping him in a blindingly white Halo. Suddenly it strikes Aaron just how beautiful Robert is. It’s jarring. It’s confusing. It’s irritating.

Irritating. That's what it is. Aaron is angry with Robert. He has to remind himself of that. Robert is an unwelcomed interruption. A disturbance in the view.

He’s about to tell Robert just that, when leaning against the staircase, Robert asks: “So where is your bedroom? “

*

By the time they’ve passed the threshold, the blue sweater is long gone, so are Aaron’s stained shirt and both their trousers.

This time, the desperation is gone, leaving room for something else, new, raw and just as intense, just as urgent.

It’s mind wracking how the room has been narrowed down to Robert, how space and time have been diminished to the mole on Robert’s neck, to the scent of his shower gel, to the taste of his skin, the touch of lips. So much so, that when Robert detaches himself, abruptly, walking backwards, Aaron feels like the floor has been pulled from under his feet.

Robert stands back, demanding to be watched. The broadness of his shoulders, the slope of his waist, the stretch of his legs, his body- a reflective mirror exposing Aaron to himself, Robert’s face bare, transparent like a window.

Robert says, “how do you want me?”

A loaded question if ever there was one.

_Here. Everywhere. Now. Never._

Aaron composes himself.

“On your knees. Blow me.”

Robert nods, a small smile tugging at his lips, as if he deciphered this hidden language between them. He’s closing the gap torturously slow, creating a vacuum that doesn’t allow for air. His hands on Aaron’s shoulders, pushing, until the back of Aaron’s knees hit the bed, and he is forced to sit. Their eyes are locked, a gravitational pull that shifts his center and throws Aaron out of balance. Robert is down, caressing Aaron’s thighs, carefully pulling them apart, creating a vee, an arrowhead leading to Aaron’s pulsating cock. Robert skips it, favouring instead to run his tongue over Aaron’s nipples, his navel, his collar bones, alternating between fingers and lips.

Aaron moans in frustration, his body humming with need.

Robert looks up at him smirking “say please.”

Aaron fails to find the humour in that. His body feels explosive and only Robert can defuse it. “Robert,” he gasps, his voice cracking, “please..”.

Robert’s eyes turn soft, and in one fell swoop he takes Aaron down to the hilt. Aaron collapses forward, his fingers find purchase in Robert’s back, craving to leave their prints. Robert sucks, hungrily burying himself further in Aaron’s lap, grabbing at Aaron’s waist, gulping air around Aaron’s cock.

Aaron manages to somehow summon enough energy to push Robert back. He doesn’t want to come, not yet.

Robert’s lips are blood red and wet, his irises blown wide.

“How do you want me now?” He asks, as if Aaron's still in charge of the situation, as if he didn’t forgo all semblance of control when they entered this room. Sooner probably.

As if Aaron wasn’t standing on the edge of a cliff looking down, and Robert wasn’t behind asking how he prefered to jump.

 Aaron’s voice sounds like it travelled through hot charcoals. “On the bed, on all four, face down. “

“No” Robert responds coolly, his lips in a hard line, “If you’re gonna fuck me,” 'over’ hangs in the air, “you’re gonna have to face me.”

Aaron’s mind is telling him to cut his loses and run, but Robert is already lying back, resting on his elbows, and Aaron is at least honest enough with himself to know that his runaway chances are slim to none.

 He wishes he could be rougher, but Robert’s muscles are constricting around his fingers, so responsive, that he finds himself taking the time, exploring the push and pull of it. His mouth covers Robert’s dick, while his fingers still buried inside, revealing the inner workings of Robert’s pleasure points, discovering his buttons and pushing as many of them as possible.

It feels impossible, somehow, that he should have so much power in his hands, that he should watch the undoing of this man by his own hands. To watch Robert breaking at the seams with every suck and twist. It’s mesmerising.

By the time he pushes in, the oxygen in the room is so scarce, they are panting into each others mouth. They share hungry kisses, their eyes wide open. Aaron’s body shaking with it, breaking into million tiny pieces with every hard push inside, assembling himself with every pull.

It’s horrible. It’s wonderful.  
Robert tightens around him, spilling his load between them, and Aaron world goes white.

*

“Why are you here?” Aaron asks, staring at the ceiling.

Robert’s lying on his stomach, one eye buried in the pillow, the other on Aaron.

“I wouldn't have to, if you hadn't gone into flight mode.”

“I’m at home. “ Aaron bites back, “That’s the opposite of flight.”

“You just proved the exception to that rule, then.”

“You shouldn’t have come.”

Robert smiles, “Your dick made me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.” Robert sighs, “tomorrow, ok? You can kick me out tomorrow. In the meantime, though,” He rubs circles into Aaron’s arm “I’m gonna kiss you good night, then we are going to sleep.” His smile mirroring Aaron's own “I have to warn you though, I’m a kicker and a cuddler, but you can repay me tomorrow with the awful coffee you undoubtedly keep in this place.”

*

Morning coffee waits to two more rounds of sex, one in the shower, one on the staircase on their way down.

In the end Robert decides he likes his tastes buds too much to punish them with Aaron’s coffee, and they opt, instead, to go out to the only coffee place/bnb/shop in town.

It’s weird. Aaron has been with a few married men before. Knows the paranoia they walk around with, when in public. Knows the guarded looks, the turn of heads, the search for familiar faces on every street corner. Knows the businesslike fashion they carry themselves outside, the seriousness they adopt, the lack of affection.

It’s nothing like that with Robert, though. Not with the way he leans in to whisper something in Aaron’s ear as they’re waiting for their drinks, the way he puts his hand on Aaron’s to stop him from paying, “this one’s on me”, the way he sits a little too close, or smiles a little too intimately at Aaron. Not with the way he occasionally brushes his fingers against Aaron’s, later, as they walk down main street.

It throws Aaron off balance. He keeps expecting the other shoe to drops.

It occurs to him that this is a thursday and Robert hasn’t shown any signs of leaving. He’s doesn’t go off to have private talks with the mrs., no hushed conversations on the phone, no hidden texts.

They’re laying about in his kitchen, when the thoughts of it begin swarming in.

 He wants to ask, _doesn’t she mind?_

Instead He asks “won’t they mind at work?”

Robert smiles,“The perks of being my own boss. I can make up my own schedule.”

Aaron nods, mindlessly scraping at a piece of dirt on the table “Do you like it? your Job that is?”

“Yeah,” Robert pauses to think, then with certainty, “yeah I guess I do.” He leans closer, suddenly excited by the prospects of this conversation “How about you?”

Aaron shrugs, “Well with art you sort of have to love it to do it, don't ya?”

Robert eyes him speculatively, “that’s not an answer.”

Aaron sighs, “I’m good at it,” then on further thought, “or, the very least, reasonably successful at it. I can’t really complain, can I?”

Robert smirks, “A roaring endorsement for the art profession, if ever I heard one”

Aaron grunts, getting a little riled up“ If you’re after some soulful speeches about callings and undying passions, you’re knocking on the wrong doors, mate.”

Robert narrows his eyes, “See, I don’t think I am.”

Aaron's suddenly feeling exposed “What you on about?”

Robert takes his time, crossing his fingers on his lap, selecting his words carefully . “A curator I’ve consulted, when I was looking to buy your work,” he explains, checking for Aaron’s response the entire time, ”said it has changed dramatically over the last year,” Aaron’s already readying himself for what’s to come, but still manages to find himself rattled when Robert says, “and not for the better.”

“What’d he say?” Aaron tries to sound as uninterested as possible.

“Called it 'cerebral’, if I remember correctly.” 

“Cerebral?” Aaron gapes at him, “That’s supposed be a bad thing?”

Robert rubs his chin, “His exact words were 'cerebral and heartless’”

It hits like a fist to the chest, but Aaron tries to compose himself, to even out his voice, “Have you come here to insult my work?”

Robert shakes his head,“You’re many things, Aaron,” his voice turns soft, “heartless isn’t one of them. “

Aaron crosses his arms, distancing himself. His head is already a million miles away, “Just my work, then?”

“Have I hit nerve here?” Robert leans forward trying to close the gap. When he realizes it’s unpassable, he leans back in resignation, “I thought this was a no- bullshit -territory?”

“It is.” Aaron huffs in annoyance at having his own words used against him. “You’re not hitting any nerves, just getting on them.”

Robert’s voice remains annoyingly even, “What happened then?”

Aaron decides to stop participating in this line questioning, “just because I haven’t kicked you out of my home, yet, doesn’t mean you're invited into my brain.”

Robert smiles knowingly. He leans back in his chair, taking Aaron's raised tone with a stride“I like it, by the way.” The sudden shift of conversation throws Aaron for a loop “Like what?”

“Your home.” Robert gestures at the space around them, “Meant to tell you earlier, but I was otherwise occupied. “ He lifts his eyebrows suggestively. “I’m still waiting for the grand tour.”

Aaron guesses that’s as good distraction as any.

*

“You genuinely like this. Don’t ya?” Aaron asks mid-tour.

Robert takes his eyes away from pastoral maritime reproductions on the corridor’s walls. “I do. Why so surprised?”

“I guess I shouldn't be anymore.”

“Maybe it’s nostalgia. I grew up in a house just like this.”

“You did?” Aaron's forehead creases in disbelief.

Robert nods, “Grew up a farmer.”

“Robert Sugden a farmer?” an image of him in overalls and wellies pops into Aaron’s mind, and he can’t seem to stop the laughter that bubbles up his throat.

“If I’d known this would get this kind of reaction from you.” Robert’s face lights up, “I would have told you much sooner.”

Aaron’s cheeks are burning and Robert wraps his arms around him. “Have I ever told you how horny boat paintings make me?”

The rest of the tour is forsaken to later.

*

It’s late afternoon when Robert points at the door that leads to the garage. Aaron positions himself in front of it protectively.  
Robert smirks, “is that where you store the bodies?”

“That's where I make my cerebral and heartless work”.

“You’re gonna show me inside?” he lifts his chin towards the door.

“Nope.”

“Could have guessed that.” Robert shrugs, “Couldn't blame a bloke for trying, though.”

“Could blame a bloke for overstaying his welcome.” Aaron points out

“You kicking me out already?” he asks amusedly.

Aaron’s sighs, “I guess I could feed you first. “ Then remembering, “Though we should probably go get provisions. Unless of course, you’re into beans on toast.Without the toast.”

“Or I could take you out.” Robert suggests

“What did you have in mind?”

“I hadn’t had proper pub food for ages.”

“Oh by all means then,” Aaron declares theatrically, “who am I to stand in the way of your plebeian dreams.”

*

It’s nice seeing Robert like this, grease on his fingertips, a smear of ketchup on the corner of his mouth, spoonfuls of pudding, quickly disappearing. Aaron finds himself wanting to lick the sticky toffee off of his lips.

“I have a surprise for you.” Robert says when they’re back in his car.

“Another one then..” be turns his face towards the window to hide his excitement.

Robert puts the car into gear, “You’ll like this one. I promise.”

“You’re a gift that keeps on giving, Sugden.”

He presses the paddle,“Damn right.”

It’s twenty minutes later that they reach what seems to be an abandoned barn.

“Saw it on the way over to yours.” Robert says as he parks his car.

Aaron’s turns to Robert as he unbuckles his seat-belt,“And you thought you’d impress me with your mad farming skills?”

“So impatient.” Robert scolds as he pulls himself out, “You must be a joy to be around, Christmas time.”

He pops the boot of his car and pulls out a large carton box that rattles as he leads Aaron in.

Aaron takes all of it in, the bales of hay, the stone walls, the large wooden beams, the light filtering in between the tin panels on the roof. “This has the making of a horror film.” he comments, as he watches Robert crouching down to open the box.

There are a couple of dozen of spray cans inside, and Robert looks up expectantly at him, as if Aaron was supposed to figure it out already.

“What’s that for?”

“Do I need to draw you a chart?”

Out of all the things he could have imagined Robert surprising him with, that one wasn’t there, “You brought me here to work?”

“Well, you have to earn your dinner somehow.” Robert smirks.

Aaron rubs his neck, thinking on how to get himself out of this,“I could have come up with several more creative ways.”

“Come on,” Robert holds a random can up. “When was the last time you did an actual, non-commissioned graffiti?”

 Aaron stalls “Someone could walk in.”

“That’s half the fun now, isn’t it?” Robert is up and approaching.

“I don’t even know where to start.” he realises he’s quickly running out of excuses.

Robert shoves the can into his hand.

“Start with a line.”

 He tries to rekindle that feeling in his hand from back then. From way before. The weight of a new can, most likely nicked as he shook it, keeping his ears peeled, while the rest if them were on the lookout, the rush of not knowing if he’ll get to finish it. The unparalleled excitement when he did.

His fingers are shaking with it. “This is stupid.”

Robert doesn’t budge, patiently watching, completely tacit.

“You’re just gonna sit there, then?”

Robert just smiles in return and nods.

“Fine.” Aaron says. Then, channelling all of his aggravation for being put in this position into his hand, he makes the first splash. His entire body thrumming with the rush of it, like it was a natural extension of the can, shaken with it. After that, everything blurs but the wall, the intoxicating smell of fresh paint, and the sharp colors that make everything else a little dull.

At some point, Robert goes to his car to bring in a few emergency lights he must have bought specifically for this  
He projects then on to the wall, revealing a patch of work at a time. Aaron’s sweating, his arms straining with it, but his body’s in ecstasy, pulling every each way on it’s own volition.

*

He’s exhausted by the time he looks back around at Robert, “You happy now?”

“Very,” Robert answers sleepily, “granted, I was pretty pleased with it two hours ago.”

“What time is it?” Aaron’s stirs.

Robert looks blearily at his watch, trying to decipher the numbers there. “Two..no three.”

“Can’t be..”

Robert stands up on shaky legs, flexes them as he walks past Aaron to closely inspect the wall. Aaron stands next to him, shoulders brushing, and follows Robert’s gaze back to his own work. It’s like seeing it for the first time (and maybe he didn’t really look). He feels something that can only be construed as pride.

“I take it back,” Robert says “the last two hours were definitely worth it.”

Aaron finds himself nodding “Yes, they were.”

Next thing he knows, they’re naked on a heap of rumpled clothes, moving slowly against each other, trading lazy kisses. Too tired for anything more demanding.

“Aaron”, Robert says against his neck, all warm and drawn out, “it’s perfect.”

*

It’s past noon when he wakes up in bed alone. It’s disappointment laced with relief until he saunters down to find Robert at the kitchen table deep in thought.

“Rebecca sent a message two hours ago to say she’s coming over.” Aaron says.

Robert looks up at him calmly.

“Shouldn't you, you know-” Aaron motions at the door, surprised by the non-reaction.

“Makes you wonder..” Robert says, inscrutable look on his face, resembling sadness.

“What?”

“What if I’d shown up without a ring that night in the gallery? What if I had told you straight away I’d never had sex with Rebecca.”

“Right..” Aaron shakes his head incredulously.

Robert looks directly at him “No bullshit territory, right?”

It takes a few seconds for the truth In Robert's words to sink In, when it does, it rattles him to his core and he finds himself angrier than he probably should be “Why’d you let me think you have?”

Robert looks up evenly at him. “Why didn’t you sleep with Jeff that day?”

Aaron unsure where this is going, “who says I haven't?”

“Don’t worry,” Robert smiles bitterly, “I’m under no delusion it was for my benefit.” He looks up at Aaron unexpectedly “Come on, indulge me, why didn’t you?”

Aaron frowns, “You seem to know everything, why’d you reckon then?”

“I think you haven’t slept with him that day, for the same reason you never did before that,” Aaron looks up In surprise, “because he’s single, because he’s emotionally available, because it might have meant something. “

Aaron feels the blood pumping hot in his veins. “I’m not the one with wedding ring on here, mate.”

“No,” Robert shakes his head, “you’re the one with the running shoes on”

Aaron is shaken out of his reverie by the sound of the car pulling in outside. He balls his hands at his sides,“You should probably go now.”

“yeah,” Robert says, getting up. “I probably should.”

 


	2. Rebecca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rebecca is bottom-lines, and forging- ahead’s, and don’t-fuck-up’s, and Aaron has a box of half empty spray cans sitting in the corner of his bedroom telling him faking it is not going to cut it anymore."

“Robert fucking Sugden.” Rebecca says, storming in.

 She tosses her gloves on the breakfast table, her face flushed, “So, this thing is still on, I see.”

He recognizes the sternness of her pose - she’s in battle mode. Aaron squares his shoulders, it’s not the first time they’ve readied their swords, forged their stations. Their relationship is as much owed to blood, sweat and tears as it is to anything else.

‘Clashing personalities’, Paddy calls it. Not unkindly. He said, ‘all relationships are built around rituals of sorts - yours around war cries and white flags.’

“You can have a go at me over my work or my sex life, but you’re gonna have to choose one.” He lifts his chin challengingly at her.

 She meets his stare and raises him one, “So, how _is_ work?”

He huffs, deflated “awful.”

“Well,” She smiles against her will “good to see nothing’s changed then.” She sinks in the chair, the fight draining from her body. “Can I have a go at you over your sex life now?”

“If I say no, will it stop ya?”

“No.” she leans forward, resting on her forearms, “But I’m willing to postpone it for when we have more alcohol in our bloodstream.”

It’s a testament to his visible emotional state that Rebecca decides to let it drop.

“Come,” she says, “help me get the groceries out of the car, I bet you’ve been sustaining yourself on nothing but tea and cereals.”

He smirks, “sometimes concurrently.”

*  
And maybe this is the Rebecca-Aaron plotline summed up. Up in arms one moment, Rebecca slaving over their shared dinner the next. He probably doesn’t deserve her. She will say things like, ‘it’s not family if you don’t want to kill each other sometimes.’ and Aaron will fight the urge to hug the breath out of her.

“You have a commission for a mural at a law firm down in Bristol next month”. She says while putting the plates on the table. There’s an unspoken agreement there to let the beast lay dormant. He gets it, you don’t talk about fight club. He waits til they’re both sitted before he says, “Bex, I have nothing more to offer.”

“You’re in a rut.” she brushes it off, “I know. Doesn’t matter.”

“How could it not?”

“Trust me,” she says reassuringly “rich people don’t understand art, all they care about is having your signature at the bottom.”

“You’re a rich person.” he points out.

“Exactly,” she waves her fork, “That’s how I know.” She takes a bite of her food and smiles contently, “Besides I’m special.”

He shakes his head and goes on to eat. “Oh, you’re something else alright.”

*  
“It’s just so bohemian” she waves her shot glass around the bar, half the content spilling over. “The artist I’m representing” she’s giving a speech to no one in particular, “is fucking my brother in law. “ Aaron winces as she gulps what’s left in one go and slams the glass on the bar, “like we’re fucking characters in some modern french film.”

It’s not nine yet and Rebecca is already hammered. The beast stirs in its sleep.

Aaron’s been nursing the same pint for the last two and half hours. He feels like he needs to be sober for this.

Except _this_  doesn’t happen.

*

She’s maudlin. She’s leans in meaning to whisper something in Aaron’s ear and nearly topples over. “I hate village pubs.”

“I know you do,” he strokes her hair fondly.

“Too clat..calstor..claustrophobic,” she stumbles over the word, “I keep expecting my aunty to walk in and pull me out by the ear.”

 And maybe this is the part of the Aaron-Rebecca plotline missing. It’s Aaron holding her hair in the toilet as she’s hurling what’s left of the dinner. It’s Rebecca refusing to let Aaron pick her up as they exit the taxi that took them home. Too proud for her own good. It’s Aaron depositing her on the sofa, knowing the stairs will pose too much of a challenge, making her drink a cup of water before tucking her in. It’s Aaron kissing her forehead goodnight.

It’s not family if you don’t want to kill each other sometimes.

 “Aaron,” she calls to him drowsily, then stabs an accusing finger in his chest, when he leans in, “Why couldn’t you just go for Jeff?”

“Trust me,” he says holding on to her hand “I wish I could.”

 *

He’s at it again. Can’t help himself, really. Picking at scabs, breaking healed wounds apart, seeing what comes out. The bed still smells like Robert and he’s drowning in it.  
Aaron blames his defective coping mechanisms. He could have drank or slept or fucked his way out of this, instead he’s neck high, looking down to see what’s underwater.

His finger hovers over Robert’s name on his phone, paddy’s comment about self-destruct buttons reverberating in the back of his mind, but he pushes it nonetheless.

“Aaron,” Robert’s comes off strained, likes it’s been rushing to close the physical gap between them. Aaron tries to find purchase on the words fleeting through his mind, to assemble them into coherent sentences. After several attempts that amount to nothing, he surrenders himself to the silence.

“Have you called just to breath in my ear?” Robert finally snaps it. There’s a slight strain at his attempt at lightness, Aaron already grew attuned to “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a phone creeper.”

He could probably joke back, say something sharp and aloof that would cut this tension through. That would peel away this constrictive, suffocating ceramic layer that envelopes whatever this thing is, but he doesn’t want to. He thinks maybe Robert’s sensing it- figuring out Aaron’s not responding but not hanging up either, like they’ve reached a stalemate, a narrow plateaued bridge that demand a fine balance.

Robert draws a sharp breath, then exhales heavily, “do you realize it’s the first time _you_ called me?”

Aaron sighs, “I don’t know where you’re steering this”

Robert gasps, maybe surprised to finally hear Aaron’s voice, maybe at the fact that out all the words Aaron could have chosen he picked these. Aaron’s downright surprised himself.

Not as surprised though as to hear Robert’s sudden laugh. It’s a bark that erupts already shredded.

“Aaron, “ he says catching his breath, “you were always the one at the helm.”

*

Rebecca can’t hold a drink to save her life, but seems completely unburdened by patty human concerns such as hangovers.

It’s eight o’clock in the morning and she’s impossibly gorgeous. Aaron hates her on spite.

He needs a morning fag and a cup of brew, not necessarily in that order.  
Rubbing his face he realises, he might also be in need of a shave.

Her level of awake should not exist yet.

Of course he hasn’t really slept. So there’s also that.

Rebecca says, “we should get away.”

She puts the kettle on and drops Aaron’s packet in front of him.

All things normal. He puts his guard down.

“Remember that project I’ve told about in Berlin?” she waits until he lit one up then goes on, “I found us a place to stay, a friend’s loft, could be fun.”

The smoke slowly kicking away the night’s muck from his brain. “I don’t think they’ll let us back in Berlin after you threw up on that copper’s shoes.”

“He had it coming,” she knocks on the packet and draws one out for herself. “plus, I think that pot was laced.”

“We were smoking the same stuff” something inside him brightens up, she has done it yet again. “but I somehow managed to keep the contents of stomach on the inside.”

She smiles wickedly, “Does that mean you’ll come?”

He bites his nail, dread taking over “The people there are not rich, Bex, they’ll know.”

The concern on her face is quickly replaced by determination, “Might just be the cure for what ails ya"

 *

If Rebecca had a tagline it would read, ‘fake it till you make, and if you still can’t make it, fake it till others buy it.’

Rebecca is bottom-lines, and forging- ahead’s, and don’t-fuck-up’s, and Aaron has a box of half empty spray cans sitting in the corner of his bedroom, telling him faking it is not going to cut it anymore.

Robert picks up on the fourth ring. In hindsight, perhaps he should have planned it better, because all that comes out is, “Three years”

“Sorry,”Robert says amusedly, “you’re gonna have to try again, this time with full sentences.”

Aaron clears his throat, “It’s been nearly three years since I’ve made an actual non-commissioned graffiti.”

“You miss it.” a statement not a question.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Aaron says. Being at the helm shouldn’t be this disorienting.

Robert sighs, “It depends on what you want to happen.”

And that’s big tough one, isn’t it? Aaron’s not sure he can see that far out into the horizon. Instead he says, “tell me something true.”

 Robert takes his time. Aaron thinks that a in weightless relationship based on unmarred honesty, telling truths shouldn’t be this hard.

“I’m scared of spiders.” He finally says.

“Spiders?” Aaron repeats to make sure he heard correctly. “Are we talking big tarantulas or itty bitty ones.”

Robert’s filters seriousness through a smile,“Do you realize how many people die annually, suffocating on those tiny ones in their sleep?”

Aaron laughs, “I’m pretty sure the answer to that is zero.”

Robert voice betrays his amusement “I could be the first casualty.“

Aaron surrenders to the warm feeling that settles in his belly and spreads out throughout his limbs. “You’re ridiculous,” he says.

 “Yeah, well...” Robert's voice turns soft and intimate.

Aaron lets their ‘Goodnights’ lull him into sleep

*

He’s in a foul mood and the day hasn’t begun yet. He probably used every excuse in the book to get himself out of this, but the book’s done and they’d already landed in Schoenefeld Airport.

“Welcome to hipsterville.” Rebecca drops her luggage in the middle of the hyper-modern bright loft space they’ll be staying at.

“There’s only one bed.” he points out ruefully.

“Alright princess, s’not like the first time we’ve shared a bed,” she raises her palms in the air, “I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

“For the life of me, I can’t figure out why no one snatched you up yet.”

Rebecca rolls her eyes “Maybe it’s the company I keep.”

He starts unpacking his bag, “Tell me about this project again. What does a walk-in installation even mean?” They’ve gone through this a million times before, but he’s looking for something to gnaw his teeth at.

“All you need to know,” Rebecca uses her motherly placating voice. “is that some philanthropist donated a decrepit inner-city building to turn into a public artspace, that they’ve gone and invited street artists from around the world, and that they’ve asked specifically for you. Alright?”

 “Maybe it’s an experiment, where they cluster up as many artists as possible to see who snaps first?”

“It is,” she crosses her arms, “and I’ve already put my bet in.”

*

They show him the space that would be his, a mid size room he’ll be sharing with a french artist, whose name he doesn’t remember but pretty sure he met in a group show in Paris about a year ago. “A partner from the wrong side of the channel.” she says with a thick french accent, and introduces herself as Anne-Louise.

“Leave it to the German to put France and England in enclosed quarters” Rebecca says.

Anne-Louise chuckles and raises her hands in surrender, “I come in peace, I swear.”

They engage in casual conversation and Aaron slips away to check out the premises.

The rest of the rooms are buzzing with industrious creativity, color and exchange of ideas. It’s both exciting and terrifying, his fingers somehow feel both ticklish and numb.

Robert takes longer this time, answers just as Aaron’s ready to give up.

“Sorry,” he says breathless, “I was in meeting. I might have given them the impression I have a serious bladder issue.”

“I can call later” Aaron says guiltily.

“No, don’t” Robert says rushed. Then with sudden realisation, “wait, where are you calling from?”

“Neukölln, Berlin.” he rubs at his temples “I don’t think I’m cool enough for this place.”

“Nobody’s cool enough for that place.”

Aaron smiles, “I’m pretty sure Rebecca is.”

“Yeah, well,” Robert reconsiders,”maybe Rebecca.”

Aaron bites his lips, stalling. “I used to have the hugest crush on David Beckham.”

“Who hadn’t?” His laugh is cut short when he realises where Aaron’s going with this, he says “Back in school I was part of a Sex Pistols tribute band.”

Aaron leans against a wall, lets himself indulge in the picture of it. “Were you Sid or Johnny?”

“Some things are better left forgotten.” Robert groans

Aaron laughs.

“I’m sorry,” Robert says, sounding genuinely regretful, “I have to go back in before they start giving me the names of their urologists.”

 When he gets back to room, Rebecca is gone and Anne-Louise is already at it, working with fine brushstrokes to create her elaborate mural with its intricate details. It’s a thing of beauty. He stares at his own white wall, staring blankly back at him.

It’s shaping up to be a long week.

He sends Robert a text: ‘I think Christopher Nolan is grossly overrated.’

‘Heathen’ Robert writes back almost immediately, then ‘when she was four, I convinced my little sister eating an entire jar of Vegemite will give her Disney princess hair.’

Aaron shuts his phone and faces his wall again.

*  
It’s past midnight, and the wall is still mockingly bare-naked. Most of the artists retired for the day. The building eerily quiet. Normally he’d take comfort in it, but tonight he feels like he needs the distraction.

“Fame and fortune are the worst things that can happen to an artist.” Anne-Louise shows up behind him holding two bottles of beer, offering him one.  
She sits down beside him, staring at his wall, sharing the silence. Surprisingly, it’s not awkward.

“Your agent is,” she’s searching the right word, “unique.”

“Rebecca?” he smiles, “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

“Are you two…” she motions something mildly lewd with her fingers

Aaron laughs, shaking his head, “Unlikely.”

“Okay,” she says slowly, as if if figuring something out.

“I remember the last time I had one of those” she points at Aaron’s empty wall.

“Yeah?” he turns to look at her, “How’d you pull out of it.”

“The key,” she says, “is to start something and commit to it.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not.” she says, “but it wouldn’t be worth it, if it was.”

 *  
He picks up a can. He knows most artists prefer to make a sketch beforehand, assessing their space, planning their color schemes, checking for proportions. Aaron has both the benefit and the disadvantage of never been formally trained. He has nothing to rely on but his instincts and experience. He draws a large red circle in the middle of the wall. Even if the muse doesn’t strike, at least there’ll be no more of that white to tease him.

‘commit’ he thinks to himself.

His palms feel sweaty. He pulls out his phone and types in ‘I keep waiting for them to realise I’m a fraud’, hesitates a few agonising minutes before finally pressing the send button.

No answer comes. His stomach drops.

He thinks of turning in, maybe smoking something that will help him sleep. It’s past one and Robert’s probably already dead to the world.

It’s then that his phone starts ringing.

He counts to ten and answers.

“You’re not fraud. ” Robert’s voice comes out groggy, anxious but not exasperated, like he's making his best efforts to convey his full intentions.

Aaron takes a deep breath, a surge of courage suddenly coursing through his blood “If I’d told you I wanted you here now?”

“I would’ve booked the first plane out.” Robert says simply.

“I’m not looking for any grand gestures”

“I know,” Robert says, “what do you want?”

“Tell me something true”

Robert takes a deep breath, “I miss you.”  
*

The truth is.

Well, the truth is that emaciated relationships can leave you awfully hungry, and Aaron been starving for most of his life. (Not for food, although there has been those periods as well).

Truth is, He had never set out to be an artist, it was never within the scope of possibilities for him. Art wasn’t a purpose, it was an instrument to fill the gaping holes gnawing at his insides. Even later, when he started working in his uncle’s garage up in the Dales, using half his paycheck to buy paint, he sort of figured that was what life had to offer him.

“Truth is,” he tells Robert, lying down on the hardwood floor, staring up at the industrial ceiling, “I got caught”

He didn’t realise it was a private property, or more honestly, he didn’t realise someone was in there.

Paddy’s veterinary clinic.

“And that muppet, Paddy,” he tells Robert, “instead of turning me in, asks me to finish the job, and even goes about paying me for it. Woulda saved him a lotta hassle doing away with me back when he still could.”

“You love him.”

“Obviously.”

But that’s not even the story. It’s not about loving Paddy, it’s almost impossible not to. It’s not even that theirs is probably the most meaningful relationship of Aaron’s life. No. The real kick in the head, is that Paddy loves him back.

It’s nearly three AM when they finally hang up. Aaron stares at the red circle and lets the muse do her thing.

*  
It took him nearly three months to finish Paddy’s clinic, slaving over long lunch breaks and evenings and on all those useless rainy weekends, until they’ve finally gone and put the tarp up. It was an adjustment to start working in broad daylight, gave it a sense of realness and exposure, Aaron grew to appreciate. It was tea times and lunches, and careful talks about nothing and everything. And then one day it was done. He was done. Not because he had to do runner, or because the cops were closing in. But because he knew it, deep down in his bones.

Paddy looked at him with this foreign fatherly sort of pride and Aaron looking at his own creation with something of an awe, suddenly overcome with it, he thought  _i didn't even realize._

“It’s a goddamn pilgrimage site for the young unwashed masses,” Paddy called to complain one day, “I have half the mind to grab them by their pierced faces and throw them out of my property.”

Which in Paddy speak was ‘when are you coming to visit? it’s been too long’. Sometimes Paddy would say those words too, when Aaron allowed him get carried away with sentimentality.

The red circle is slowly gaining dimension and color, expanding, evolving, transforming until it’s something else completely. It’s not done yet, not by a long shot, but it’s something Aaron can start recognizing as his own.

*

He wakes up freezing and with sore joints. Rubbing his eyes, he can make out the backs Rebecca and Anne-Louise as they’re inspecting his work. Anne-Louise is the first to notice he’s up, turning her head slightly, she says, “We’re gonna have another French-British war on our hands.” a secret smile of approval on her face.

Rebecca remains in her place, but Aaron can see that her shoulders are shaking. “Bex,” He gets up to stand beside her. She’s a mess- runny nose and mascara down her cheeks. She rubs her face with the back of her sleeve. “I knew it,” she weeps, as he beckons her into his arms.

 The heaving subsides as she slowly backs away, “I’m ruining your shirt”.

“I don’t care,” he says.

She calms herself down “Enough with this touchy-feely shit,” She announces in between sniveling “we need to celebrate.”

“I’m beat.” he says.

“You also smell,” she says scrunching her nose, “and it’s not even noon. So you’re gonna go back to the loft, shower, shave, eat something and sleep, and then we’re going out. Got it?”

He nods, knowing better than to argue.

“You’re coming, right?” She says to a surprised Anne-Louise. Rebecca raises her eyebrow, they both know the answer to that.

*  
After Paddy’s clinic, the word started circulating. Maybe Paddy was circulating it himself, Aaron wouldn’t put it past him. He got a few commissions, a bar in Leads, a coffeehouse in York, a restaurant in Sheffield.

“The youth center in Manchester was my biggest by far, never saw so much paint in my life” he tells Robert while preparing a toast.

“Were you nervous?”

“Yes. No. I don't know. It still all felt like makebelieve.” He says, “I could still convince myself that it was just some temporary side job.”

“What changed, then?”

The answer is clear, “Rebecca”

*

“He thought I was crazy,“ Rebecca tells Anne-Louise. They’re in an all-you-can-drink wine bar she heard about, which sounded so ridiculously Berlin, she couldn’t pass up on. “Thought he’d spend the rest of life painting sides of buildings.”

“Still think you’re crazy” Aaron quips.

“So you discovered him in Manchester?” Anne-Louise asks, apparently amused by their interaction.

“The biggest discovery that city had since the Gallaghers.” Rebecca says.

*

It’s nearly hour later when Aaron remembers he doesn’t even particularly likes wine. It doesn’t take long to find a place with a variety of beverages, a tap and a music low enough to actually hear yourself over.

Rebecca excuses herself to the ladies, and Anne-Louise leans forward to say, “It must amazing to have someone around who has this much faith in you.”

“Against all logic” he nods.

“So how come you two haven’t…”

He thought that was obvious, “I’m gay.”

“Oh,” she smiles, “me too.” she smirks, “Gay street artists, eh?”

“We come a dime a dozen.”

“Exactly,” she clinks their glasses together.

“You know,” she looks coy all of a sudden, “I kept meaning to tell you, but for some reason felt self conscious about it.”

“I made you rethink the whole veginas only policy?” he jokes.

“Unlikely,” she laughs, “No. I meant to tell you how life-changingly good your Grandview mural is. I must have spent two hours just sitting there, taking it all in.”

It’s good thing Rebecca shows up then to draw attention away from how pale his face must have turned.

*

‘The Mona Lisa curse’, some artist told him at a show once ‘it’s a known trade secret, almost unavoidable’. The one creation all past and future works will be compared to, stand against, forever failing.

 The Grandview station mural is probably the best and worst thing to have ever happened to him.

 It wasn’t even clear why he got the commission, considering he was mostly an unknown artist with hardly any track record or anything else in his favor, besides some happy low level clients and an overzealous agent.

Obviously it was bound to draw crowds, media attention, and the critical eye of the art world. It was also more money drawn out in one check than he’d ever seen his lifetime.

“Someone just saw your work and went gaga for it.” Rebecca said. “This is world altering moment for you. Don’t fuck it up.”

 And the absolutely mind blowing part is that he didn’t. Against all self-sabotaging prediction, against every voice inside that prepared him for failure or desertion. He somehow made it. Months of little in the way sleep or food, of nicotine and caffeine abuse, and gnawing feeling in the back of his mind that he was somehow being watched, that someone was holding him accountable.

It was as if destruction was holding shape and color and morphing into something beautiful.

“Ever heard about the impostor syndrome?” he asks Robert.

 That day after the grand unveiling, after the toasts and the cheers, the endless photos, the handshakes, and the stacks of business cards thrown his way, he knew that nothing else he would ever create could possibly measure up.

And on that day he started sharpening his knives.

 *

It’s shaping up to be one of those nights.

The stars are flickering like christmas lights, the moon’s bright as a lighthouse and all the roads lead back to his painting.

They’d happen often during his Grandview days. Rebecca used to say he looked like he’s sleepwalking, drunk with it. His own private siren song.

This night, though, there’s something new and unfamiliar. The pull feels erotic in nature, lustful almost

“So what you’re saying is, your painting’s giving you a boner?” Robert asks.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“No wait,” Robert calls out, “I’m sorry. Please, tell me more about your boner.”

“If I had one, it’d be gone by now.”

“That’s a shame,” Robert says petulantly “I have fond memories of it.”

Surprisingly, lust is still there after he hangs up. If anything Aaron feels even more on edge, his senses are acutely attuned. The lines come out heavy, long winded, as if they’re being pulled from his core, igniting small fires on their way.

He thinks about Robert’s mouth, the warm wetness of his tongue, the dexterity of his fingers, and allows the colors to follow - It’s reds, and oranges and rich burgundies and when he’s done, it’s a feeling akin to an orgasm.

He takes a photo and sends it to Robert.

‘It’s amazing.’ Robert writes back. ‘You can barely see the cum stains.’

*

He’s coming back from his morning smoke into a an unsettling feeling of deja-vous. It’s Rebecca's and Anne-Louise’s silhouettes against his work, except this time Anne-Louise leans down to brush hair away from Rebecca’s face moments before their lips lock.

He coughs, making his presence known.

Anne-Louise blushes, detaching herself, “Maybe I’ll go get us some coffee.”

They share an awkward look before she exists.

Aaron waits until she’s out of earshot,“So this is new.”

“Oh please,” Rebecca scowls, “you’ll probably be the last one to jump the bi-sexual bandwagon. Besides,” she announces, “I’m on a no-dick diet.”

She turns back to his wall. They’re standing shoulder to shoulder.

“I know you’re horrible with accepting compliments,” she says, “but this is fucking incredible.”

“Thanks,” he says deflecting.

She turn to look back at him, he meets her gaze. It seems like they’re on the brink of something crucial. Something that might erupt at any second.

“Despite all opinions to the contrary, I’m not as daft as I look.” she says, “I see things.”

There is a knowing, slightly pained look on her face, “and it’s not like I’m completely immune to the Robert Sugden charms, myself.”

Fight club it is.

“Bex.” He’s not sure what to say. The beast is rearing his head, demanding to be addressed.

“Trust me,” she rolls her eyes and sighs, “It’s about as pathetic as they come.” She slumps down on the floor, he follows suit.

She says, looking ahead at the wall “I came back from uni one weekend, ready to tell my dad I’m dropping out.”

Aaron’s not sure where she’s going with this, but willing to let her lead, “Lawrence must have loved that.”

“Except I never got the chance to,” she looks at him, “since Chrissie decided to introduce Robert to the family that night.” her face reddens, “I just really, really wanted to impress him.”

“Wait,” realization dawns, “You stayed in university to impress Robert??”

“and went on to graduate school.” She berates herself. “Told you- pathetic.”

This is definitely not where he thought this conversation was going. It’s like Rebecca took him on a detour around the water, where no bridges had to be crossed.

He decides to go with it, “Bex,” he puts his arms around her shoulders, “you know if I had any predilection towards tits tats...”

“I know.” She gives him a tiny nudge, “I’m a catch.”

 *  
It’s mind boggling how something can comfort and excite you at the same time, but the picture of Robert waiting on Aaron’s staircase does just that.

“What if I’d decided to drive from Heathrow directly to the cottage?” he asks as his hand tightens on the handle of his trolley.

Robert shrugs, “I would’ve gotten pneumonia and died.” He stands up “you look tired”

“I’m knackered and I stink.”

“I bet you just want to shower and go to bed, then.” Robert stuffs his hands in pockets, shoulders slumped.  
He says reluctantly “ I could go.”

“I might need someone to help me scrub my back.” Aaron suggests.

Robert sways from side to side, his face breaking into a smile “I can do that.”

*

It feels almost ceremonial, the dedication on Robert’s face as he undresses Aaron, the pace of it, leaving kisses in wake of each article of clothing.

Robert adjusts the heat in the shower and Aaron feels more naked than ever before. It’s intense in ways it never was, and instead of being burdened by it, he feels..

The tips of Robert’s fingers hit every nerve point in his body. A delicate rush that runs like wine through his system, making him tipsy. Robert’s tongue’s collecting droplets from his shoulder, running hot currents through his spine.

And yet it doesn’t go beyond that. Robert wraps him up in a towel, slowly absorbing the moisture from his body, he’s down on his knees drying Aaron’s ankle and feet. He feels..

The ceremony continues, he’s in bed on his back, Robert’s preparing himself, and Aaron’s hard as a rock, but he’s okay with this melodic, soft sort of tempo, playing on his heart strings. Robert sinks down and Aaron should be imploding already, instead he feels. He feels. He feels. He feels. He feels.

“I feel..” he nearly shouts.

“Say it!” Robert rasps against his lips.

He’s standing on a cliff looking down, but Robert’s there beside him holding his hand.

“Robert” he breaks.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper

*

“I’m glad you came.” He says later. His eyelids feel heavy, his body sated.

Robert laughs, he rests his head on his palm, drawing aimless lines on Aaron’s chest, “saying that must have taken a real effort.”

“shut up.” Aaron grins.

There’s an easy, addictive sort of silence and Aaron says, “Tell me something true.”

“Aaron,” Robert gasps, “I have so many.”

Aaron smiles. They have time. “just the one, tonight.”

Robert smiles back, “I’m kinda crazy about you.”

And Aaron, feeling it in every essence of his being, answers, “yeah”, and allows sleep to take over.

 *

Rebecca is fists-out, and no-holds -barred, and try-everything-twice. She’s a pain in your ass, and an ache in your heart and she’s family in ways almost no family is.

She’ll say things like, “sometimes I still feel like that scrawny little pimpled faced girl hanging on her big sister’s coattail.” and Aaron will hug the breath out her.

“Enough,” she’ll cry out, but make no real move to pull away.

She’s there, in his is flat, less than two hours after Robert left.

She says, “So Anne-Louise might be coming for a visit.”

“That sounds ominously serious.” he gulps his tea.

“Shut up,” her face reddens, “she’s nice.”

“She is nice.” he smiles.

“You know, I don’t remember ever seeing you like this“ She says, almost giddily.

“like what?”

Her face turns soft, “happy.”

Guilt’s taking over and he realizes the beast has been sleepily consuming more and more space between them. It needs some rude awakening.

He wants to ask her, shouldn’t you be angrier on Chrissie’s behalf?

Instead he asks, “shouldn’t you be mad at Robert?”

She sighs, “I don’t think I could ever really be.”

He looks quizzically at her urging her to explain.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.” she says as if stating a fact

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t he tell you?” she looks suspiciously at him.

“Told me what?”

She stares at him speculatively, then around the room, her eyes suddenly blown wide open in shock, and he can see it, flickering through them, “oh my god, Aaron.” Her understanding's dropping piece by piece like blocks in a game of Domino rally. “I’m such idiot.”

“What?” he asks, worried and confused.

She gets up and collects her things, “I have to speak to Chrissie. I’m so sorry”

 He can hear her calling, as she’s storming out.

“Robert Fucking Sugden.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. So this is a more nostalgic rendition of Paddy of yester years  
> 2\. I know they've brought Rebecca in as a 3rd wheel-bitch sorta plot device, but I honestly like her. If they could, please make the Aaron-Rebecca friendship canon, that would be awesome.  
> 


	3. Chrissie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert answers the phone as if he’s been anticipating it. Preparing himself for what’s to come. It’s good because Aaron barely had time to bob his head out for air.
> 
> “What do you wanna know?” he asks.
> 
> “Everything.” Aaron answers.

The secret of Paddy Kirk’s charm, is that he’s completely guileless, lacks all finesse or subtlety. He always opens the door way too wide, “What’s wrong?” he asks, mild hysteria on his face. If he could, he’d probably build a bunker for everyone he loves.

Aaron shrugs. Scuffing his shoes.

There’s no point in lying to him, Paddy can see right through.

“I get it.” Paddy gestures for Aaron to come in, “It’s a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ type of situation.”

“Maybe, a ‘don’t tell’ right now,” Aaron apologizes.

Paddy stretches his arms, his body is a welcome home banner.

Aaron leans in for a hug.

*

The secret to Paddy Kirk’s charm is that he’s useless at subterfuge, he covers the mouthpiece with his hand, whispering a little too loudly, “Yes, he’s here.”

And “No, he won’t tell me.”

“Was that Rebecca?” Aaron asks, slightly exasperated, when Paddy hangs up.

Paddy turns around, guilt on his face. “She says ‘tell him to turn his blipping phone on and call’ and then a slew of profanities I’m not going to repeat.”

*

The secret of Paddy Kirk’s charm is that he fusses. He wears his heart on his sleeve and his concerns in the creases of his forehead. There’s something almost comforting about their familiar dynamics. Paddy prepares too much food, with way too much grease, maybe expecting the words to slide out sleek of Aaron’s throat.

It’s not that Aaron’s has been blind to the shift. Ever since the “incident” -that’s how they’ve been referring to it, as if calling it by name will make Paddy or Aaron disintegrate - Paddy’s been careful, extra watchful, trying to sneak a peek at whatever exposed flash he could get at. Except that Paddy’s version of tiptoeing makes glasses slip from his hand and shatter. It’s probably the third in shards since Aaron got there

“Please sit down,” Aaron finally snaps, “you’re doing my head in.”

*

“The thing about addiction,” said the therapist the hospital assigned him after the ‘incident’, “is that you never really kick it.” He had thick rimmed glasses he kept pushing up his nose, and a comb over he nervously ran his fingers through. He was tired and frazzled but had a aura of someone who knew what he was talking about and wasn’t about to rub glitter around it. If it wasn’t for the circumstances, Aaron might have actually grown to like him. “The secret is to replace the lethal ones, with some that aren’t.”

Cutting himself probably fell into the first category, and smoking somewhere in between, he’s still not sure where Robert comes in, but he does know that livers heal and hearts don’t. So he makes up a drinking game, where he has to take a shot every time a text from Robert comes in, or when he thinks of writing one back (always), and then with every ring until his phone thankfully goes to voicemail.    

He probably can’t keep this up for very long.

*

Drunkenness aside and overactive flight mechanisms notwithstanding, he honestly thinks he has made the rational, mature decision coming here.

Assembling the pieces he does hold, sparse as they may be, he realized there are only several routes this can go down on. It’s not even that none of them offer an happy ending for Aaron, that’s a life truth he’d learnt to accept a long time ago. It is that none of  these plotlines are even his. He’d somehow become a guest in someone else’s story, whether it’d be the one about the cuckolded wife, or the open marriage, the sibling rivalry, or the man with the fluid sexuality. He’s a laughable footnote in the White-Sugden narrative.

He’s there, standing on the sidelines waiting for this parade to run him over. The only real options were getting crushed or moving out of the way.

And Aaron’s been crushed a little too often in life.

Realistically, he could have waited for Rebecca to supply him with answers,  or for Robert to reveal his truths, (excuses most likely), but Aaron has already tested the waters, saw the tide coming in, knew that, soon, he won’t be able to touch ground.  

He knows that he’ll accept whatever Robert will be willing to give him, however meek and scarce. He knows what it’s like swallow unfathomable amounts of bitter for one spoonful of sugar. He also knows, he’ll dishearteningly agree to play a minor role in his own life.

So he cuts his losses short, and escapes by the skin of his teeth.

It’s not the first time he had used Paddy’s home as shelter.

*

Seven days of radio silence and alcohol overdose, and he’s ready for the second stage of his recovery to begin - a good dose of righteous indignation, at which Paddy reached a master level. Luckily, in Aaron’s case, there’s nothing more deserving of righteous indignation than the truth.

He tells Paddy over breakfast, hangover still pounding, “I’ve been having an affair with a married man.”

Paddy rests his utensils slowly on the table. “Well,” he sifts through his words with a disturbing care, “that’s hardly the first time, and you already know my thoughts on that matter.” He puts his hands in his lap and leans forward. “What are you not telling me? did it get messy?”

Aaron looks down at his plate, his stomach turns.

“Not exactly,” And here it comes, the blow that would earn him the final knockout. He anticipates the goriness  with a bitter sort of thrill, “it wasn’t just any married man. It was Rebecca’s brother in law.”

The startled look on Paddy’s face suggests there a generous helping of moral judgement about to be served. Aaron welcomes it.

“Robert?” Paddy says to Aaron’s surprise.

“You know him?” Aaron tries to recall if he ever mentioned his name to Paddy.

Paddy looks like he’s trying to work the details in his head. “Did it start before..” _the ‘incident_ ’ Aaron mentally supplies

“No,” Aaron tries to figure out where he’s going with this, this definitely wasn’t the direction he was aiming at “months later, why?”

Paddy seems lost in thought for some time. It suddenly occurs to Aaron, “No, Paddy, he had nothing to do with it. “

“No.” Paddy shakes himself “I know. Never mind.“ Worried expression still marring his face.

They sit there in silence. No judgemental outrage, no moral scolding, no reprimanding.

Aaron feels cheated.

*

He decides to call Rebecca instead.

“So not dead.” is the first thing she says.

“no.”

“A sudden case of amnesia?”

“no”

“lost your voice and fingers temporarily in a horrific accident?”

“Bex I’ve been fucking your sister’s husband, can we cut it with the jokes.”

“Aaron,”

“No,” he stops her. He’s in the mood for a fight and he trusts Rebecca to dole one out. “We’ve been prancing around this for months now. You acting like I’m gonna break if I don’t get my ego rubbed.”

He can hear Rebecca breaths getting shorter and angrier. Like a pressure cooker ready to explode.

“You fucking arsehole!” her voice comes out chipped and shattered. _There it is_.

“I’ve nearly watched you die. You don’t get to decide how I act around you anymore, have we got that clear?” And it’s like he got punched in the guts by an outside player. And instead of making him bruised but punished, it leaves him mostly empty and sad.

“Bex,” he says quietly, “I’m sorry.”  

She sighs heavily, he can hear a small weep caught in her throat.

“Aaron, Robert and Chrissie..”

“Don’t” he stops her again, this time pleading. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

She waits, “Does he know that?”

“He’ll figure it out.” he rubs his face. “Let’s just go back to the way things were before, yeah?”

“I know you don’t think you deserve this..”

“Bex,” he’s minutes away from begging.

“Fine.” she relents, “meet me at the opening at the Newport street Gallery, Thursday evening. I’ve e-mailed you the details. We’ll talk then. "  

*

The opening at the Newport is a black tie event and Aaron has nothing but an ugly thing he burrowed from Paddy and a suit he wore to a funeral once. He spots Rebecca with her shiny hair, a strapless dress and the overall demeanour of someone who fits in. She’s speaking to a woman who has her back to him. There’s something eerily familiar about her from as much as he can see. She turns around to follow Rebecca's gaze, as he approaches.

Chrissie. The cuckolded wife herself.

He’s not sure whether to feel trapped or betrayed. He chooses both

He’s grabs a drink from the first the waiter he sees, and makes his way out.

*

“If it helps, I told him he was being an idiot.” Chrissie stops him in his tracks by the back exit, where he’s been walking back and forth furiously. She leans against a wall tightening a coat around her.

He steadies himself. A sudden thought forms in his mind, that maybe that’s where blame’s gonna hit him. The this is the fountainhead of his future catharsis and that he has to face this head on.

“Don’t worry,” a tight smile on her lips, “this isn’t the wife-mistress drama you’ve been anticipating.”

She sits down on a the stepping stone, demanding he does the same with her eyes. She exudes confidence of someone who’s used to getting what she wants. It probably runs in the Whites genes. Aaron can barely settle the image in his mind, her elegance against the dirty surroundings, almost as jarring as the words coming out of her mouth. He’s not sure whether he’s following orders, or allowing his knees to buckle under the weight of it, but he sits down beside her.

“Robert had this weird notion that you were hanging onto his wedding ring like a lifeline.”

“What?” he looks at her like she’s been speaking Chinese

“His wedding ring.” she explains slowly as if he’s being purposefully obtuse “It wasn’t for my benefit.” she must sense he’s still not getting it. “We’ve been separated for many months now.”

Instead of clarifying things, her words sit heavy like a fog before his eyes, obstructing vision. He blinks twice,“So you’ve known all along?”

She smiles, “Probably longer.”

He doesn’t know why this is the first thing that occurs to him, “How come Rebecca didn’t say anything?”

Chrissie shrugs, “In the beginning she didn’t know, after that, she assumed _you_ knew.”

Figuring out the following questions, feels like an impossible task, as if he has to relearn words and language. As if he’s rebuilding a puzzle where all the pieces have been dyed white. He studies her expressions hoping somehow sense will bloom from this. 

She’s pensive, “initially I thought he was out of his gourd, going ahead with his plan.” she smiles at Aaron knowingly, “but I think he might have had a point.”

They sit there in silence. Aaron’s mired in confusion.

Chrissie says eventually, “Either way,” and gets up, brushing her clothes, “please fix this. A kicked puppy is not a good look on Robert Sugden.”

And just like that, she leaves.

*

If all the rest is in a pile of jumbled pieces, finding Robert on his front entrance, is at least a part of the puzzle still complete.

He smiles wearily as Aaron approaches, rubbing his hands together, unsure.

“This is becoming a public nuisance.” . Aaron allows amusement to colour his voice .

There’s a slight relief on Robert’s face “Your neighbour told me I should demand that my boyfriend makes me a copy of his keys already.”  

Aaron sits down beside him.

“This is the worst neighbourhood watch ever, she should have called the cops by now.”.

Robert laughs weakly, “I think she has the hots for me.”

“She’s 90” Aaron grins.

“Older women adore me.”

“Like Chrissie?” Aaron says, tone suddenly serious.

“I don’t think she adores me much at moment.” Robert sighs, “Said I was getting on her nerves with my whining.”

And Aaron can see it all of a sudden, the dark circles around his eyes, his unkempt hair, the fatigue in his voice.

“She may have used the term ‘kicked puppy’.” Aaron nods.

“So,” Robert inhales audibly as if preparing himself, “running shoes?”

“So,” Aaron replies, looking at Robert’s ringless finger, “lifeline?”

“Aaron,” his name comes out nearly choked, “I swear I was going to tell you.”

“Robert” he get up to stands in front of him.

Robert looks up worriedly “what?”

“I’m all talked out tonight.” he says.

Robert deflates, dropping his head in resignation.

Aaron extends his hand to him, “Let’s just go in.”

*

It’s definitely different now, that time is for Aaron to take and not to steal. A lazy indulgence he allows himself to bask in.

There’s no rush or urgency or hard knocks. They’re leaning against walls for support more than passion. Their bodies weary and heavy, their touches lingered and tired.

They fall on the bed with half their clothes on. Their kisses are mostly soft, barely-there touches of lips. Aaron’s in boxers and half buttoned shirt, Robert still has his jeans and one sock on.

Aaron is half hard but he’s ok with the way Robert’s tightening his arm around his waist and breathing shallowly on his throat.

If every encounter before felt like a battle Aaron was fighting, mostly against himself, this feels like a content sort of defeat, a mutual white flag.

They surrender to sleep and peace takes over.

*

Now that the pressure is gone they take separate showers. Robert fries eggs while Aaron goes out to bring the morning paper.

“I can call in sick,” Robert offers.

“No, we’re good.” Aaron says, kissing his shoulder, _there’s time._

They need to talk, Aaron knows, but in the meantime he just wants to enjoy this uninterrupted guiltless easiness.

Robert’s expression is light, as if years have been taken away from his face. His eyes crinkle at the corner. It looks like he’s brimming with this.  

“Yeah,” he says, “definitely good.”

*

“Why was Robert at the hospital after the incident?” asks Paddy.

His call comes an hour after Robert’s out the door. Aaron experiences a sudden a pang of guilt at seeing his name on his screen. He moved out of Paddy’s without saying much, leaving behind a chasm of unsaid words and unresolved emotions. Paddy might have a penchant for collecting wounded animals, but it didn't mean he expected to see their backs turned once they’ve healed.

“What?” he knows Paddy has constructed a grammatically sound sentence, and yet its meaning doesn’t make a lick of sense. Although Aaron had no doubt to which hospital incident Paddy’s referring to- there only one that left such clear echoes in their lives - he cannot for the life of him put Robert in its context.

“At the beginning, I assumed he was there to support Rebecca.” Paddy painfully sighs, “She was in a downright state. except,” he seems to take a moment to sort out his memories, to verbalize them.

“Rebecca finally agreed to go home and sleep. I’ve just come back to your room from a coffee run, when I’ve caught _him_ looking at you.”

Aaron feels like he’s sunk in deep waters, “What do you mean, looking at me?”

He’s not even sure that the words left his mouth or just swam around in his head, because Paddy continues uninterrupted. “I don’t think he saw me. Maybe I’ve got it all wrong, but” he says cautiously.

“Just say it.” Aaron’s anxiety taking over

“He seemed” Paddy’s looking for the right word, “shattered”

*

Robert answers the phone as if he’s been anticipating it. Preparing himself for what’s to come. It’s good because Aaron barely had time to bob his head out for air.

“What do you wanna know?” he asks.

“Everything.” Aaron answers.

On the other side of the line he can hear a chair creaking as if Robert’s shifting in his seat. He starts his sentence approximately ten times over, until finally he exhales, surrendering to what comes out.

“I was having the worst day.” he says, “I was up north, supposedly for a meeting, except that his secretary fucked up the dates, and the waitress, where I was sitting, ignored me twice and spilled coffee on me once. I was yelling at a hotel receptionist over the phone because she accidentally gave away my room and I couldn’t really hear her because of a small fire that erupted a few blocks over.” He’s speaking with a rush of someone who’s seeing the finish line. “The entire street was in chaos. I look out the window seeing the fire truck go by, and, then, suddenly,” he stops for breath, “everything goes quiet.”

“What happened?” Aaron asks.

There a tiny sort of humourless laugh, and then Robert says, “It was midday on a narrow street in Manchester, the world seemed be going up in flames, and there you were, debating between two shades of blue.”

*

“He never did give me enough credit.” Rebecca says. She’s lying beside Aaron on his bed, where he’d spent the last two days, trying to sort his emotions out.

“And it only took you two years to figure it out.” he teases.

She punches his arm.

She’s recounting the details, “I finished my masters, went back to my dad’s, drove everybody crazy with how lost I was.” she shakes her head in embarrassment.

“Then Robert calls,” he supplies.

“Then Robert calls,” she nods, “says he’s in Manchester and that he wants to discuss future business options. And like the pathetic, love stricken mess that I was, I come running.”

“and me?” Aaron asks, “he let you think it was your idea?”

“In a way it was.” she smiles at him, “All he needed to do was get me there. The rest was up to your talent and my relentless drive.”

Aaron closes his eyes, “I just don’t understand why.”

“Didn’t he say?”

Aaron retraces the words Robert used, “Said something about wanting me in his life, at whatever capacity.”

Rebecca mouth quirks,“Sounds kinda romantic”

Aaron’s as lost as he was before the call, “He waited two years, Bex.”

“That’s a little weird.” she concedes, “did he say why?”

Robert said circumstances, said he didn’t have the words for it back then, but that he has them now. Said many things, but Aaron felt like he was going deeper and deeper underwater, and whatever Robert said sounded as if it traveled through the currents, muffled and wet.

Robert said, “I can’t lose you.”

And Aaron said, “I need time.”

And Robert said…

*

Chrissie doesn’t beat around the bush, she has  a short, unapologetic sort of style, Aaron appreciates and fears in equal measures. She leaves him a  message on his voicemail telling him to meet her the next day at the Grandview station at three.  

Aaron might have avoided that place like fire for nearly a year now, but admits defeat when he’s pressing the paddle to get there on time.

He’s late.

She’s not making it any easier on him, having picked a bench situated directly in front of his mural. She acknowledges him with a small satisfied smile.

“You can trust Robert to not even pine like a normal person.” she says seconds later.

 _Pine._ He rolls the word over in his head

“That’s what it was,” she says as if reading his mind. “Rebecca would come to dinner, telling us all about her huge discovery, and I would see him, taking mental notes, the way he would before a big presentation .”

“You knew back then?”

“No.” she smiles, “I actually thought it had to do with Rebecca.”

“You didn’t mind?” he asks in bafflement.  

She shakes her head. “I told you we’ve been separated for several months now, but the truth is that we’ve both checked out of this marriage years ago. “

“So why..?” he’s not sure how to phrase the rest of that question without judgement.

She bites her lip, “We’ve had a big row one night. I think he was planning to leave, we’ve both ended up drunk, and like all bad decisions that result from too much alcohol..”

Fragments of stories Rebecca told him emerge, “You were pregnant.”

She nods, “I didn’t even realise it was possible after Lachlan's disastrous delivery, but I knew I wanted this. I think Robert did too.”

He knows where this ends, remembers Rebecca broken with tears _she lost the baby._ “I’m sorry.”

“I was a mess and he was wonderful. I think that’s when we’ve realised.”

“that you still loved each other.”

“No.” she laughs, “that ship has sailed a long time ago. No, that we actually like each other.”

Aaron can see the simple, genuine affection there.

“and then,” Her expression turns somber in an instant, “Rebecca calls us one day, to tell us you were in the hospital after she has found you. It was my turn to be wonderful.”

The silence seems to stretch forever after that, hard, demanding, unrelenting, as if their shared pain was nestled between them, restraining them to their seats.

Eventually, Chrissie says, while collecting her things, “I know you’ve probably heard that a million times before. But that,” she point at the mural, “is absolutely brilliant. A masterpiece really.”

He still hasn’t been able to direct his gaze at it, but he thanks her nonetheless.

“When’s the last time you were here?” she asks.

He shrugs, “Not since it was done”

“I figured.” She gets up, and puts her coat on, “You know, Aaron, sometimes things deserve a second look. “

*

The Grand view station is an architectural piece of innovation. Aaron still remembers the first time he saw it, admiring how the barren outer walls seem to mimic the rocky terrain it’s laid upon. The expensive glass reflecting the sun on the rolling hills, creating pools of lights in the grooves and meadows below.

The mural is located in the entrance hall, commissioned as a central piece, set in harmonious contrast to the views in its background.

There’s a memory etched into every inch of that wall, from the yellow spilling into the greens in the far left corner, the orange smears and white gaps in between, the black outlines broken by the grey shadows, that turn to ethereal blues on the top. There’s a serene sort of distance, a time-earned perspective that allows Aaron for a new deep appreciation. It’s like seeing the finer details, he may have forgotten or lost track of, in a new sort of forgiving light.

Something shiny catches his eye. Next to the mural there’s a small golden plaque, that definitely wasn’t there before. He has to crouch nearer to read it. When he does, he nearly loses his balance and topples over. Right there under his name, written in black etching:

 

**Donated by the Fairchild Fund**

**In loving memory of**

**Jack and Sarah Sugden.**

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly at a hard time with this one (as you can tell by how long it took me to publish an installment that’s less than 4000 word long). I had to overcome my fear and hatred for unavoidable, long running monologues. I found a compromise I’m ok with. Hope it’s not a disappointment after the big build-up.


	4. Aaron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And the plan grew limbs, long extensions that reached everywhere, expanding on itself, and Robert couldn’t help himself. He had to teach himself how to have Aaron, breaking the world apart, rebuilding it piece by piece. 
> 
> And maybe the last part of the plan was giving away the blueprints. "

Robert wants.

 As long as he could remember, want was like a constant state, a condition, a time bomb ticking, want, want, want, want, counting backwards, till needs are met and urges fulfilled. Robert wants, and when want isn’t granted, it spreads like venom in his blood, making the air around him toxic.

 Robert wants and Aaron is a lesson in delayed satisfaction, in suspended gratification, like an orgasm that’s been staved too long

 “Has he been worth the build up?” Chrissie asks.

 The build up didn’t even touch the tip of it.

 “I thought it was bad before,” He tells Aaron over the phone. “but meeting you made it ten times worse.” That’s the last time they spoke.

 Robert wants, and Aaron is a burning fiery desire, he tries to extinguish with work and alcohol.

 It’s been a week.

 Aaron is a lesson in patience.

 *

 It’s sunday morning and the clatter of pots coming from the kitchen pounds like hammers in his head. The first thought that occurs to Robert is that if they’re gonna burgle him clean, they should at least be civil about it and do it stealthily. He begrudgingly pulls himself out of bed and grabs the first thing he sees.

 “I’m calling the cops” he announces as he rounds the corner.

 “Oh, good you’re up,” says Chrissie. She’s flipping pancakes with a perfectly manicured hand, “I see you’ve finally found use for those golf clubs.” She points with the spatula at the one he’s holding over his shoulder.

 He lowers the club and rubs his eyes with the hill of his palm. “What’s with you White women and mornings?”

 “I don’t know,” she says and turns her head, “Becca, what do you think?”

 He looks around frantically to see Rebecca perched on one of his sofas. She greets him with a tiny wave, and goes back to calmly sipping her coffee.

  _His coffee._

 He’s suddenly struck with fear “Rebecca, is he..?” _fine? Hurt? Angry? Forgiving?_

 There’s a shadow of something crossing her eyes, but it passes too quickly for him to get a grasp on. Whatever it was, it’s soon replaced with nonchalance. 

 “You know I have conflict of interests.”

 He sinks into one of the bar stools around the kitchen island. “What are you even doing here?”

 “Rebecca wouldn’t believe me when I’ve told her what a sad, miserable creature you’ve become.” Chrissie says.

 Rebecca nods “I came to see it with my own eyes.”

 “What’d I tell ya?” Chrissie asks and places the scented platter way too close to his nostrils. He feels sick.

 “It’s worse than I thought.” Rebecca’s mouth pulls in distaste as she comes to sit next to him.

 “Not hungry.” he complains.

 “You have no one to blame but yourself, you know?” Rebecca says angrily and serves herself no less the five pancakes.

 “Honey, don’t be upset” Chrissie appeases her “you know he can’t help himself. Robert will scheme his way to breakfast.”

 *

 Robert will scheme his way to breakfast, lunch and dinner. He takes, and he breaks and he pockets what he wants.

 “Your want is the thing empires are built on,” said one of his clients. She didn’t care about his vows. She didn’t really care about hers either.

 “Have you ever cheated on Chrissie?” Rebecca asked.

 And the answer is yes, a few times, but he only betrayed her once. Two years ago in Manchester.

 Aaron was debating between two shades of blue. His brow creased with concentration after applying both, and the ticking inside Robert slowed down, turned mallow and sweet.

 There was want, of course there was, but it was different, soothing, sweeping like the touch of the ocean on the tips of your toes.

 He wanted something he knew wasn’t for the taking. Something that would never fit his pockets.

 “I didn’t know how to have you then.” he told Aaron.

 Empires have fallen because of moments like those.

 *

 Even though he didn’t touch the food, he’s still made to wash the dishes.

 “As much as I’ve enjoyed this beat-Robert-to-a-pulp-girl-talk-brunch, I’m going back to bed. Don’t forget to lock on your way out.” he says as he wipes his hands on the towel.

 “Hey,” Chrissie protests, “I think I’ve done more than my part for this.”

 Rebecca nods and crosses her arms, “and I didn’t tell him to get a restraining order, which is more than I would have done, had it been anyone else.”

 “Well, I’m moved beyond tears,” Robert flattens his hand on his heart. “I’m also knackered. So you know..” he salutes them goodbye.

 “I feel like a marionette in the Robert Sugden theatre show,” says Rebecca as he he exits.

 “We all do sometimes,” Chrissie agrees

 *

 The ticking didn’t become more persistent, only more present, like wanting Aaron was a part of his life’s soundtrack, like the fall of his steps or the beating of his heart.

 It required pacing and paying attention to the details, taking mental notes.

 It wasn’t the first time his wants demanded endurance and effort. There was the five year plan, and the ten year plan, and lists, and school, and career and Chrissie- they used to call it drive - but Aaron required a fine tuning, like the seconds were as important as the minutes, as the hours as the days.

 And the plan grew limbs, long extensions that reached everywhere, expanding on itself, and Robert couldn’t help himself. He had to teach himself how to have Aaron, breaking the world apart, rebuilding it piece by piece.

 And maybe the last part of the plan was giving away the blueprints.

 Chrissie came back from the Grandview, and he told Aaron over the phone “here is the rest of it.”.

 Aaron kept quiet when he told him how he brokered the deal on the flat, while paying for a quarter, so they’d have a place to have the ‘affair’, because he knew how Aaron hated hotels.

 Aaron kept quiet when he told him how he convinced his client, the baronesse, that donating the eastern-Berlin building to the public was both a great political move and fantastic tax-wise.

 And Aaron kept quiet when he told him about the ring, and about the fine balance he had to maintain to keep Rebecca just enough in the dark, to not blow this thing open.

 “Anything else?” Aaron asked.

 “I don’t smoke.”

 Two weeks gone and counting.

 *

 Chrissie starts seeing a guy who’s completely subpar.

 Granted, most men are.

 “Don’t you find it odd to seek your ex-husband’s approval on your love life?” Rebecca asks.

 Chrissie quirks her mouth, “I have the worst taste in men.”

 “She does,” Robert confirms.

 Rebecca concedes, “you do.”

 “Maybe you should switch teams like Rebecca?” he offers.

 “Like you, you mean?” Rebecca quips

 “I never had a team.” Robert answers.

 “Meh,” Chrissie declines, “tried it once in uni, we ended up spending the night complaining about men and painting each other’s nails.”

 “I’m thinking of inviting Anne-Louise to dinner at dad’s next friday.” Says Rebecca.

 “Is this you introducing your girlfriend?” Chrissie teases affectionately

 “Maybe,” Rebecca blushes, “we hadn’t put labels on it yet. What about you?” she directs her question at Robert.

 He doesn’t bother to lie, “I miss him something fierce.”

 “You know,” she says, “I get all the other parts of the ‘Plan to Get Aaron Dingle’, except for the Grandview. What purpose did _that_ serve?”

 Robert exchanges knowing glances with Chrissie,  “It didn’t.”

 *

 He’d come there almost every day. It didn’t matter which time he would arrive, Aaron was always working. He found a nook where he could go unnoticed and he watched.

 He imagined how every brush stroke and how every dip of paint held a secret message for him to decypher.

 The Grandview station was a lesson at putting someone else’s wants before his, Chrissie’s. It was a goodbye gift from Robert to himself.

 “The Grandview wasn’t about having you,” he told Aaron, “it was about giving you up.”

 It’s been three weeks since the last phone call. He’s still not ready to do that.

 *

 “I get it, you know?” says Rebecca as she enters his bedroom.

 He’s on his bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. It’d been happening often lately. “get what?”

 “It’s stupid,” she sits on the bed beside him, “but I used to have a crush Aaron, too, in the beginning.”

 “I know, it was obvious,” he smiles, “anyway this isn’t a crush.”

 “I know,” she says amusedly, “it’s obvious.” She’s pensive, “Maybe I have a thing for gay men..”

 “m’not gay.”

 “Robert-Sugden-sexual,” she agrees, “it’s its own category.”

 He finds himself laughing.

 “Robert,” she says after several seconds of silence, “some of the plan was about getting _him,_ but the rest of it..”

 He fills in, “Was about getting him better.”

 He can hear a sniffle. When he turns his head, he sees she’s in tears.

 “I was trying so hard for so long.” she sobs.

 “I know Rebecca. But it was for me to fix.”

 “No.” She shakes her head almost violently, “I was the one who pushed too hard.”

 “No,” he sighs sadly, his eyes back at the ceiling “it was the Grandview mural that was killing him.”

 *

 He thought he’d made peace with it after the mural was done. Except one night Chrissie hung up the phone, worry marring her face, “that was Rebecca.”  Robert doesn’t remember how he got there, only that 20 minutes later he was already at the hospital.

 It wasn’t ticking anymore, it was stomping on his eardrums. It wasn’t just want, it was worry and care and awful guilt intermingled, creating a cacophony in his head.

 The plan started materializing on its own, without any real conception, as if it has sprung to life fully grown.

 He told Chrissie the next day. He told her everything. And she just hugged him and said, “ok, I’m in this.”

 “I don’t know what would’ve happened if you had died there.” Robert tells Aaron on their last phone call.

 It’s been four weeks, and the thought still makes him break into cold sweat.

 *

 Chrissie hosts a dinner for himself, Rebecca and Anne-Louise. He can see why Rebecca likes her. She’s sharp in a quiet, modest kind of way.

 “You should see her work,” Rebecca says excitedly, “all these intricate pieces filled with gorgeous little details.”

 Anne-Louise turns red, but by the way she looks at Rebecca, he can tell the  admiration is mutual.

 “It’s part of this philosophy,” she tells him after Rebecca and Chrissie leave them alone to take care of dessert. “A lot of people assume the arc of a life-story is determined by some dramatic turn of events, but they’re wrong.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “It’s more like a game of connect the dots, where the story is made with a series of tiny, at first seemingly insignificant, moments. People are not defined by life changing events but by the intricacies that make them-them.”

 *

 Of all the things he knows about Aaron, the self-harm, the fear of intimacy and of abandonment, the insecurities and the anger control issues, there’s another sea of things that he didn’t bother learning and that somehow seem crucial right now.

 He’ll drive around in his car and it will suddenly become important that he knows, whether Aaron hates that song playing on the radio as much as he does.

 Or he’ll be at the office and wonder what’s Aaron’s favorite Beatles album, who was his favorite teacher and does he remember that rush when he was first allowed to go on the Rollercoaster as a kid.

 He’ll watch some stupid show on TV and he’ll find himself turning to ask Aaron if he finds the character development ridiculous.

 Or walking down the street, he’ll realize he doesn’t know what’s Aaron’s favorite chocolate bar, if he ever read a book that made him change perspective, or what’s his ideal vacation destination.

 And the weird thing is, he wants Aaron to know all those things about him too. He wants to tell him about the cast he wore when he was 9 after he broke his arm, and how he cried when they took it off because Julie Simmons signed on it. And he wants to tell him how he tried to learn Italian one summer to impress that foreign exchange student. And he wants to tell him about his favorite pasta sauce, and how he sometimes worries that his dad didn’t love him enough.

 It’s been five weeks, and he is Robert fucking Sugden, he doesn't just let things happen to him.

 *

 It starts innocuously enough. He’s in the produce section at the supermarket, and he sends the text without even thinking about it.

 ‘Still can’t tell the difference between coriander and parsley.’

 And Later at home he takes a photo of the pie he just baked, ‘is this Mary Berry worthy?’

 He doesn’t get a response, but then he never really expected one. He texts Aaron about the movie he’s going to watch, and about an article he read in the paper.

 ‘Stuck in traffic, caught a grey haired woman picking her nose like gold might come out.’

 He writes to him about successful meetings. And the less successful. ‘He was up on his feet when he realized I knew nothing about cricket.’

 He texts him about the dreams he had. Some of them, maybe most, include Aaron.

 One night he types in ‘what’s your favorite Beatles Album?’ just before he goes to sleep.

 His heart leaps out of his chest, in the morning and he has to rub his eyes twice to make sure he saw the short message correctly,

 ‘white’.

 *

 It’s ticking like a metronome, setting the tempo, gaining momentum like an overture. Want builds up like orchestra tuning its instruments.

 Robert writes, and writes, and writes some more. And more often than not, Aaron answers in monosyllables. But it’s as if the ocean that touched the tips of your toes, was just establishing contact before the great wave.

 Because one day a call comes in.

 “I should be running for the hills.” says Aaron.

 Robert silences the symphony erupting in his heart, “Why aren’t you?”

 Aaron takes a deep breath, “Faulty flight’s mechanism?”

 Robert lets his tired laugh release the tension that got built up in his body, “I say, good riddance.

 “So,” Aaron sounds hesitant, “you want to come over?”

 “That’s a stupid question. Try again.”

 Aaron clears his throat, “when are you coming over?”

 “I still haven’t tested how fast my car can go. I guess I’m gonna find out.”

 *

 Any hesitancy Robert might have felt standing in front of Aaron’s door is quickly tossed out the window, when Aaron throws the door open, grabs him by the lapels of his jackets and pulls him in for a kiss.

 Their noses bump. And that’s just a first in a series of unfortunate events.

 It’s zippers locked, and head stuck in sweaters, and teeth where tongues should be, and elbows in ribs, and hands colliding, and slipping on socks, and legs in a jumble and finally a hard crash on the floor.

 “ouch,” Calls Aaron holding on to his knees.

 “This is a disaster,” says Robert, shaking in head in puzzlement “what the hell happened?”

 They’re on the floor, a mess of naked limbs, and Aaron looks at Robert and he’s smiling. A real genuine smile that reaches all the way to his eyes.

 Robert smiles back. He gets it. It’s perfect in a way only fractured things are.

 “Ok”, says Aaron, determined. “Here’s to second attempts.”

 If before the sex was intense, or rushed, urgent, or consuming. This time it’s different. Almost comical. It’s Aaron straddling his lap, holding Robert’s arms over his head, his beard tickling Robert’s throat, his fingers accidently brushing over his armpit, and Robert nearly folds in half in a fit of giggles.

  _Manly giggles. Obviously._

 It’s laughing into each other mouths, and searching for each others soft spots, it’s small pinches, and rollings on the floor. It’s Robert saying ‘this is not what I had in mind.’

  _This is so much better._

 It’s Aaron answering ‘you can _submit your formal complaint elsewhere.’_ but digs his fingers into Robert’s ass, glint in eyes, like he has no plans of letting him go soon.

 Robert is more than ok with that.

 It’s their dicks rubbing in an almost uncontrolled, haphazard kind of way, eliciting mutual moans.

 It’s funny and it’s fun.

 Aaron is a lesson in intimacy.

 *

 “I have family in the Dales,” Aaron says, “a tribe really”. They’re lying naked shoulder to shoulder on the floor.

“A Dingle clan?”

 Aaron smiles and nods, “horrible people.”

 “you’d kill for them wouldn’t you?” Robert asks, already knowing the answer.

 Aaron smirks, “in an instant.”

 Robert finds Aaron’s hand and laces their fingers together.

 “Ok, I have one,” Robert straightens his brow, “but it’s a little sad.”

 Aaron looks worriedly at him and tightens the hold on his hand.

 “I don’t really have any friends.” he averts his gaze back up, “I fell in love with this guy, and the only person I could share it with, was my wife.”

 He side glances to see Aaron’s lips in a tight straight line. He’s slightly concerned at first, maybe he said too much, except that he notices Aaron’s shoulders start to shake.

 “Are you laughing at my misery?” he mocks outrage.

 By then Aaron already bursts in a guffaw, holding on to his stomach, wiping tears from his eyes.

 “You are!” Robert finds himself joining in on the laughter, “You’re a terrible, terrible human being.”

 Aaron calms himself down and then goes on to cover Robert’s body with his own. “What does that make you?”

 Robert doesn’t care anymore if he looks like a lovelorn 16 year old girl. He’s fucking happy.  

 “Hopeless.”

 *

 All predictions and buildups and fantasies look pale in the face of Robert nearly tumbling off the sofa as Aaron fucks him. They don’t come close to scratching the surface of Aaron nearly falling off the banister, as Robert blows him. They barely touch the tip of it, when Aaron nearly slips up as Robert pushes into him in the shower.

 And when they all but crawl into the bed - worn and half broken - want follows in too, calm and gratified and present like a heartbeat.

 *

 Morning rays filter through the shades, painting Aaron’s face with light, turning everything slightly more real, making Robert poetic.

 “First he stalks me for two years,” Aaron mumbles groggily, “then he  watches me in my sleep. Maybe Bex was right about that restraining order.”

 Robert plants small kisses on his chest, “Rebecca is never right.”

 “She told me I should consider giving you a second chance.”

 “I take it back, then” Robert lowers the blanket on his way down. “Rebecca is queen of all that is right.”

 Aaron’s dick stirs to life under Robert’s attention, but he holds onto his shoulders, stopping him.

 “We need to get dressed.” Aaron says.

 Robert tries to push his head back down, “Clothes-bad. Naked-good.”

 Aaron tightens his grip, voice stern, “there’s something I need to show you.”

Robert looks up at him through half lidded eyes, and the expression on Aaron’s face stops him from blurting the smarmy response already on his tongue.

 Aaron looks nervous.

 It doesn’t feel right.

 That nervousness follows them as they get dressed, as they make their way down, as they put on their shoes, and as Aaron’s clammy hand pulls on  Robert’s.

 “Seriously?” Robert is stuck somewhere between amazement and awe.

 Aaron stands in front of the garage door, rubbing his neck. “I had to do something to occupy myself during the last couple of months, or I would’ve gone crazy.” He meets his gaze and steadies himself, “I need your honest opinion.”

 Robert squares his shoulders “No bullshit territory.”

 Aaron nods, “No bullshit territory.”

 The neon lights flicker to life, and Robert can see it, right in the center, resting on a table-  An amalgam of screws, bolts, gears and levers. Four metallic chambers are connected by wires, and in the middle a small engine that’s shaped like a pump. Aaron pushes a switch on a tiny remote and the thing stirs to life. The gears are rolling and the chambers are expending, the wires are rattling. For a moment there Robert forgets it’s a machine and not what it’s shaped like- a giant human heart.

 “Aaron this is..”

 Aaron turns it off, “It’s a bit of a departure,” he says almost apologetically and avoids looking at Robert. He goes on rambling, “and the rest of the work is still in drafts or in  pieces, I still have to figure out the wirings…”

 Robert stops him, “It’s amazing.”

 Aaron dares meeting his eyes “Yeah?

 “Yeah,” says Robert.

 Aaron shakes his head, as if scared to get caught by the excitement, “There’s still a load of things to do, it’s probably gonna take me months, I might need some professional help...”

 Robert smiles and grabs on to Aaron’s waist.  “Have I ever told you I used to be a mechanic?”

 *

Want is ticking away leisurely, marking the days that pass in easy sort of cool tempo, like Jazz, like drizzle on a rooftop, like the turn of gears in Aaron’s garage.

 It’s Robert and Aaron spending weekday evenings applying tools, and testing, and rewiring, and redrafting. It’s takeaway wrappers and boxes lining the floor, and beer bottles strewn across the working tables. It’s about aimless talks, and talks lead to somewhere warm. It’s stupid fights about sizes of screws, and _where did you put the,_ and _did you eat all the_. Sometimes it’s fights that lead to slamming doors, and more often than not, it’s fights to lead to them being naked. It’s fucking on the bed, and in the shower, and on the sofa, or on the garage floor, if they don’t make it all the way to sofa.

 “This has a potential for a disaster,” Robert says and pulls a lever from under his back.

 “I like to live on the edge,” Aaron smirks and licks a stripe from Robert’s neck to his ear.

 It’s perfect in way only fractured things are. Aaron is a lesson in routine.

*

 Sometimes they’ll go for a drive on the weekend. Some of Aaron’s old graffities are still there, each carrying a story, Aaron is reluctant to tell, but does so nonetheless.

 It’s the small moments that make them- them. Luckily, Aaron hates that song playing as much as Robert does, and Ms. Hartley, his art teacher, was unsurprisingly his favorite.

 Robert says “The first guy I had sex with had superman bed sheets.”

 Aaron laughs, “You think that’s bad, the last guy I had sex with was once part of a Sex Pistols tribute band.”

 Robert stabs a finger in his belly, while Aaron bellows, “God save the queen, the fascist regime”

 *

It’s nearly a month in before they venture to return to the London flat. It became the place, where, Robert felt, his lies and their unresolved issues were kept hidden. Robert imagines them nourished behind locked doors, gaining monstrous dimensions, that would swallow them whole if they dared walk in.

 Aaron strides in calmly, and Robert follows behind him hesitant. He waits for Aaron to speak first. It’s a well deserved fight and he’s willing to get it out and done with

 Aaron eyes him speculatively, “You payed for a quarter of this?”

 Robert inhales deeply, “yes”

 “You know what that means?” Aaron crosses his arms.

 Robert shakes his head, preparing himself for the blow.

 Aaron smiles, “We’re co-proprietors.”

 Robert feels fear washing away in waves. “I guess we are.” he smiles back and lets himself be wrapped in Aaron’s arms, “Does that mean I get to decorate?”

 “Nah,” Aaron says playfully, “I already figured it out.”

 “yeah?”

 “We’re gonna cover the walls with boat paintings.”

 Robert pushes him until his knees hit the sofa and they tumble over, “A man after my own heart.”

  
*

 With Aaron, the seconds are as important as the minutes as the hours, as the days as the weeks. And one morning, months later, they blink their eyes open to discover they fell asleep in the garage, surrounded by tools and hardware, and that Aaron’s live sculptures rise erect and proud. Complete.

 Aaron stands on shaky feet, turns on one switch after the next, until the room itself feels like it has roared to life, beating with the organs that fill it.

 Aaron steps back and takes it all in. His hands are shaking.

 He turns to Robert, eyes wet with admiration, with pride and with relief. He falls into Robert’s arms and whispers, “thank you”

 It’s ticking love. Love. Love. Love

 Aaron is a lesson in how much your heart can expend.

 

**Epilogue**

 

You can count on Bex to be a PR powerhouse. Aaron doesn’t remember ever having so many curators in his tiny garage all fighting for first viewings.

By the time they’ve scheduled the opening at the Tate, his sculptures have already starred on half the busses and street signs in London. At one point he decided to shut down his phone, or he would have had to fend off reporters 24/7.

 “What’s it like being a major art world celebrity?” Robert asks as he straightens his tie. (picked this time by Robert, for obvious reasons)

 “No idea,” he shrugs, “but if you’re quick, you can find out what it’s like to fuck one.”

 Robert laughs, “no chance  am I getting you late to your own openings. Chas would kill me, if Rebecca doesn’t beat her to it.”

 “You know what you’re getting yourself into there?” Aaron holds on to Robers jacket. “ there’s an entire hoard of Dingles waiting in that museum. “ his eyes are blown wide to demonstrate the horror, “Lurking.”

 “They’re not that bad.” Robert smiles wearily.

 “Poor sod,” Aaron shakes his head in dismay, “walking directly into the lion's’ den.” he pets Robert’s chest, “I might not be the one with the defective flight mechanism here.”

 Robert narrows his gaze “Are you trying to scare me away?”

 “It depends,” Aaron lifts his eyebrows, “is it working?”

 “Has it ever?”

 Aaron smiles and pulls Robert for a kiss. There’s a museum hall waiting for him, brimming with beating, clamoring, moving, swaying, crackling pieces, he constructed from bolts and levers, metal and wire, figuring their innerworkings like a riddle he had to solve.

 And then there’s Robert - a multidimensional confusing puzzle whose pieces were once dyed white, and who loves Aaron despite of everything. He is probably the biggest mystery of all, one that might take forever to figure out.

 But it’s ok. They have time.

 

The end.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> Ok, wow. It`s done. Unbelievable.
> 
> I had this idea in my head for a while now, about a Daddy Long Legs, Robron kind of rendition. I figured if Robert was the long time pining type, he`d also be proactive about it, scheming behind the scenes. I also figured he`d be about curing Aaron (with his dick!) as much as he`d be about making him fall in love with him. So this story practically wrote himself. 
> 
> As you can tell, this chapter is a bit of a departure from the previous ones, not the least, because it's told from Robert`s POV. I thought I should write the two POVs slightly different. I hope it doesn't feel too disjointed.
> 
> I suffer from the pyramid syndrome, meaning I tend to blurt out only the last part of my thought process, assuming anyone just got the rest. I hope I didn't do it with this story and that you managed to follow the turn of events and the order of things. I was avoiding like fire, having to write long tedious explanations in the story itself, and as I said earlier I really hate long running monologues.
> 
> I don`t know if this part meets the expectation the story built. I really hope you like it. I`m quite content with it. 
> 
> Thanks again to anyone who followed, commented and kuddo`d this far. You`re awesome

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a quote by Banksy. My first work In the fandom, hope you'll like it. Second part will be coming soon.


End file.
